Patent ID: 7387883

Claim:
A method for detecting Staphylococcus aureus in a sample, comprising the steps of: (a) mixing a sample comprising a medium and microorganisms with a first solution in a vessel, said microorganisms suspected of comprising Staphylococcus aureus; (b) separating said microorganisms from said medium and a bulk of said first solution and removing said medium and the bulk of said first solution from said vessel; (c) adding a second solution to said vessel to resuspend said microorganisms; and (d) detecting Staphylococcus aureus in the resulting suspension of step (c) by using an agglutination test; wherein said first solution comprises sodium hydroxide, polyethylene glycol tert-octylphenyl ether and EDTA, and said second solution comprises Tris, sodium chloride and polyoxyethylenesorbitan monooleate.