10.41 million copies! Why does China surpass the United States in nucleic acid detection？

Starting: Xinhua Daily Telegraph on May 16th.

Authors: Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters Xiao Sisi, Xu Hongyi, Hong Zehua, Hu Nayun.

At the beginning of the year, Aarafi, an Arab businessman who works and lives in Guangzhou, personally felt the challenge brought by the global epidemic to foreign trade business. When talking about the epidemic prevention measures in China, the president of Guangzhou Arab Chamber of Commerce and Yemeni Chamber of Commerce gave a thumbs up.

"The COVID-19 epidemic has been brought under control in China," he said. "This is remarkable for a country with a population of 1.4 billion."

Three months ago, Aarafi returned to Guangzhou from a Malaysian holiday and has not left since. Later, the community provided him with free nucleic acid testing. "The medical staff is very caring. They set up a test point, and I can test it at any time. " He said.

Nucleic acid detection is recognized as the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of Covid-19 infection. China promotes "due inspection and complete inspection" and "willing inspection and complete inspection" in nucleic acid detection, and "accurately and efficiently" fights the epidemic from the source, safeguards people’s health, and promotes comprehensive resumption of work and production.

Nucleic acid detection: finding and cutting off the source of infection

On April 22nd, the Central Committee held a meeting to respond to the COVID-19 epidemic situation, demanding "accelerating the improvement of detection capacity and carrying out large-scale detection of nucleic acids and antibodies", and pointed out that "this is not only conducive to accurate prevention and control, safeguarding people’s health, but also conducive to the rational flow of personnel and promoting comprehensive resumption of work and production."

From the beginning of the outbreak of Xinguan pneumonia, the World Health Organization regarded the detection of every suspected case as the top priority of epidemic prevention and control. At the beginning of May, WHO once again emphasized the importance of thorough examination. Nowadays, more and more countries are aware of the importance of nucleic acid and antibody detection, and have expanded the scope of detection.

According to the data from the websites of the British Ministry of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of May 12th, there were more than 2 million swabs and serological tests in Britain and 9.72 million in Covid-19.

As of May 11th, there were more than 10.41 million copies, which is the amount of Covid-19 nucleic acid detected in Guangdong, the most populous province in China. As of May 11th, Guangdong Province has reported 1589 confirmed cases in COVID-19.

According to the relevant person in charge of the prevention and control headquarters in COVID-19, Guangdong Province, the epidemic situation in Guangdong Province continues to improve on the whole. However, as a big province of economy, trade and population mobility, the risk of overseas import still exists, and it is also facing the pressure brought by key areas and the gathering of people returning to work and production. The prevention and control situation of "external import and internal rebound" is still severe and complicated.

"Nucleic acid detection is the gold standard for the diagnosis of Covid-19-infected people," said the relevant person in charge of the prevention and control headquarters in COVID-19, Guangdong Province. According to the prevention and control of epidemic situation in Guangdong, taking the initiative to carry out nucleic acid detection can find confirmed cases and asymptomatic infected people as early as possible, accurately find and control the source of infection, thus cutting off the route of transmission, minimizing the risk of transmission, and ensuring the stable operation of economy and society.

Wu Jie, director of the Institute of Pathogenic Microbiology of Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has been working in the front line of anti-epidemic. Her institution successfully isolated the first novel coronavirus strain in Guangdong on January 27th, which provided important germplasm resources for developing vaccines and antiviral drugs.

"From the people who came to Guangdong from Hubei and imported workers to those who have resumed work and production at present, Guangdong has adopted nucleic acid testing to conduct large-scale investigations on key populations, which has been done earlier, more and better." Wu Jie said, "This has played a key role in epidemic prevention and control."

Should check and check, willing to check and check: Where does the "confidence" come from?

On January 30th, Guangdong Province began to carry out large-scale screening of nucleic acid detection for fever outpatients. After that, the coverage population gradually expanded, including close contacts, fever outpatients, patients with epidemiological history in medical institutions, and imported personnel from Hubei Province.

Medical institutions and disease control institutions are the main forces to fight the COVID-19 epidemic. The reporter saw in the First People’s Hospital of Guangzhou that the hospital specially opened a "resumption clinic" to facilitate the public to do nucleic acid testing. According to Cao Jie, president of the First People’s Hospital of Guangzhou, according to the requirements, the hospital has increased relevant personnel and purchased reagents, which greatly shortened the time for nucleic acid detection. At present, the average daily nucleic acid detection amount is about 1,500.

Under the normal prevention and control, Guangdong Province will continue to strengthen the laboratory construction of medical institutions above the second level and disease control institutions above the county level, and encourage qualified third-party testing institutions to provide testing services to fully meet the demand of "willing to do all the testing".

Whenever the evening approaches, there are more ambulances and logistics vehicles entering Guangzhou Jinyu Medical Inspection Group Co., Ltd. These vehicles come from the CDC, hospitals and other units in the city, and frequently transfer the Covid-19 test samples collected on the same day to this private medical inspection institution.

"From the New Year’s Eve to the present, our Guangzhou headquarters laboratory has been conducting nucleic acid testing for more than 100 days." Cheng Yating, assistant to the president of Guangzhou Jinyu Medical Inspection Group Co., Ltd. and general manager of the laboratory management center, said.

At present, Guangdong nucleic acid testing institutions have grown from 92 medical institutions, 37 disease control institutions and 6 third-party testing institutions to 170 medical institutions, 53 disease control institutions and 28 third-party testing institutions.

"In order to meet the coverage of nucleic acid testing, we have launched all institutions that can do it." According to the relevant person in charge of the prevention and control headquarters in COVID-19, Guangdong Province, the daily nucleic acid detection capacity in Guangdong Province now reaches 230,000 copies.

Nucleic acid detection makes epidemic prevention and control more accurate and effective.

A month and a half ago, Guangdong doctor Lin Bingliang followed China to Serbian anti-epidemic medical expert group and arrived there to carry out epidemic prevention and control work. The chief physician of infectious diseases, who has worked in clinic for nearly 30 years, realized that improving the level of nucleic acid detection would be one of the keys to prevention and control for a country that had never faced such a major infectious disease. "For a new disease, the key is to find it and then block the source." Lin Bingliang said.

When China’s expert group first arrived in Serbia, the amount of nucleic acid detection in the country was less than 300 cases per day, and the nucleic acid screening was mainly carried out in the local infectious disease hospitals, and there were not enough medical personnel who could take throat swab samples. At the suggestion of the expert group, one month later, by expanding the detection points, the daily detection volume in Serbia increased to 3,600 cases. At present, community clinics in Serbia have opened case screening, and first-,second-and third-level hospitals can screen cases.

In Iraq, the China Red Cross donated a set of nucleic acid detection laboratory equipment, including two PCR instruments and 50,000 nucleic acid detection reagents. Chen Huai, an expert from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University and a member of the China Red Cross expert group on Iraqi aid, said: "Improving Covid-19 detection capacity locally will help realize early detection, early isolation, early diagnosis and early treatment of patients."

According to Abbas, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, China’s assistance and the arrival of the expert group are very important to Iraq, and testing is one of the most important measures to prevent and control the COVID-19 epidemic.

"Nucleic acid detection makes epidemic prevention and control more accurate, effective and timely, while antibody detection is used to evaluate the infection situation of the population at the later stage of the epidemic development. The starting points are different." Cheng Yating said: "Unlike other countries, which extrapolate the epidemic situation through the infection rate, we need to find out the disease and then control the epidemic. I am very proud to be involved. "