To answer this question you have to understand that the reagent is not ready to use, an antigen suspension needs to be made first. This is done by making a mixture of the VDRL Antigen and the VDRL Buffered Saline in a 9 to 1 ratio. This suspension is good for only eight (8) hours. After the eight hours, any suspension that is left must be discarded.
If you were to make all of the antigen suspension that the kit can make at one time and were able to use it within the eight hour expiration period you could perform approximately 5900 tests. But this is not how the end users will be performing the testing. They will make small batches depending on the amount of samples that they have to test. The procedure in the package insert describes making a 5 ml batch of suspension. This is enough suspension to perform 294 tests. Most of the time there will be suspension discarded. The amount discarded will affect the total amount of tests performed. This is the reason that we do not publish the amount of tests in the VDRL Antigen Test kit.
The antigen suspension can easily be made from a 1 ml batch to a 100 ml batch. The major limiting factor will always be the amount of wastage.
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