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    Home > Medical News > Latest Medical News > Laboratories around the world are scrambling to find hidden coronavirus infections, science reports

    Laboratories around the world are scrambling to find hidden coronavirus infections, science reports

    • Last Update: 2020-02-13
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    The Global Forum on research and innovation opened in Geneva on February 11 World Health Organization (who) director general Tan Desai announced at a press conference that the new coronavirus infected pneumonia will be named "covid-19" The acronym stands for the coronavirus disease found in 2019 Mr tandesay said the name was chosen to avoid linking the virus to regions, animals or individuals and to eliminate discrimination For two months, the statistics of global cases and deaths caused by covid-19 have been updated every day, but the real scale and transmission speed of the epidemic are still uncertain Because of the limited detection ability, the detection results may still have errors "We underestimated novel coronavirus transmission," said Jeremy Farrar, chairman of the Wellcome foundation Within days of Chinese researchers releasing the virus's sequence on January 11, scientists developed tests that could detect gene sequences to distinguish the new pathogen from other coronaviruses that spread in humans As of January 28, the State Administration of pharmaceutical supervision and administration of China has approved the test kits of five companies However, there may not be enough kits on the market to cope with the soaring number of cases, and there are many places in the world that may lack experienced experimenters to use these kits Because genetic tests look for fragments of the virus's genetic material in nose and throat swabs or in fluids collected from the lungs, they only work in people who are infected Scientists are still racing to test for viral antibodies in the blood, which may help find people who are infected and recovering The International Committee on Taxonomy of viruses in February 11th named the new virus the SARS coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2 These days, many news reports have reported that due to the shortage of kits in Hubei Province, the tests are mainly aimed at those severe patients But the day before yesterday, the Secretary of the Hubei provincial Party committee had said that all suspected cases in Wuhan would be tested within two days Similar problems are happening elsewhere There are currently no confirmed cases in Africa, but there is little capacity for testing Initially, only two African laboratories were able to detect the virus, said John nkengasong, head of the African centers for Disease Control and prevention: "if the virus appears in Africa in December or early January, it will be devastating Since last week at a seminar in Dakar, Senegal, laboratory staff from 15 African countries have learned how to use a new virus detection method based on PCR analysis, our preparations have been better Another seminar will be held next week " "It's amazing that the virus has spread so widely, but it hasn't appeared on the continent yet," Farrar said Even in the United States, there is a shortage of test kits The U.S government asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide enough kits, but the agency began to do so on February 5 So far, only 200 kits have been distributed, and each kit can only do 800 tests at most U.S officials still don't test most people who fly in from China, but focus on those who have symptoms of the disease Wendi Kuhnert Tallman, head of CDC virus laboratory working group, said: "without a kit, we can't carry out the tests we want to do." Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at Columbia University in the United States, recently returned from China to conduct self isolation at home Many laboratories, including Lipkin, are competing to develop antibody tests This is of little help in diagnosing acute cases, as the immune response may take weeks to work, but it does help to clarify rumours about the spread of sars-cov-2 This test uses the virus's surface protein (a group of peptides used by Lipkin Lab) to capture specific antibodies against the virus in the blood, but it must use the blood of the infected person to validate the new test Kuhnert Tallman said: "CDC is more likely to wait for three weeks after the onset of the disease, so that the antibody level will improve by itself So far, we have a case in the United States that has lasted for 21 days " A team led by Professor Marion Koopmans of the Dutch National Institute of public health is expected to study its first version of antibody testing next week Another company has developed antibody kits that may take weeks to get to market Antibody tests may help to find out when and where the outbreak started and which animals were the original source of the virus: researchers can look for evidence of infection in stored human blood samples or in animals that may be the natural host of the virus But Koopmans said: "the most useful application is to screen people of different ages to determine how many people have little or no symptoms after infection If scientists did find many mild cases, the critical incidence rate (estimated at 20%) and mortality (2%) will plummet, which will be good news Jeni turtle
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