In the future, by purchasing reagents, everyone can test the new crown at home!
Text | Shen Lin
Recently, the multi-site sporadic epidemic across the country is still continuing. According to the data of the official website of the National Health Commission, at 0-24:00 on March 11, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 588 new confirmed cases and 1,048 cases of local asymptomatic infection.
Last night (March 11), the National Health Commission issued a blockbuster news, on the basis of nucleic acid testing, increase antigen testing as a supplement, and organize the formulation of the "New Coronavirus Antigen Detection Application Plan (Trial)". It is mentioned that community residents who have self-testing needs can purchase antigen detection reagents for self-testing through retail pharmacies, online sales platforms and other channels.
Just one day later, on March 12, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a notice approving the official listing of five new crown antigen self-test products such as Nanjing Nuoweizan. In the future, by purchasing reagents, everyone can test the new crown at home!
So, what exactly does antigen testing mean? What are the implications for us ordinary people?
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The detection methods of the new crown virus include nucleic acid detection, antibody detection, antigen detection and other methods.
For most people, "nucleic acid detection" is undoubtedly the most familiar detection method, but most people only go to the sampling point to sample, and are not familiar with the follow-up operation, and even think that the collected sample will be automatically produced on the machine.
In fact, at present, nucleic acid testing is still a "semi-automatic" testing project, the inspector needs to wear "three levels of protection" to enter the closed negative pressure laboratory work, experience a large number of cumbersome and complex manual operation procedures, in order to complete the testing work, overnight is the daily nucleic acid testing work.
Antigen detection is a simple and rapid means of virus detection. Without the assistance of professionals, and without the intervention of machines, ordinary residents can test themselves at home and get results in a few minutes. In the words of Dr. Zhang Wenhong, antigen testing is similar to a pregnancy test for women to detect pregnancy.
In order to make everyone more popular understanding of antigen detection, Zhang Wenhong also gave a vivid example, antigen is like the "clothes" worn outside the virus, and nucleic acid is the gene inside the virus. Antigen detection is to measure the "clothes" from the antibody, after the comprehensive specificity, you can let the virus show it; nucleic acid detection needs to be completed by amplification, with the amplification link, the sensitivity of nucleic acid detection will be higher, but the corresponding results will take longer.
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It should be emphasized that antigen detection is not a complete substitute for nucleic acid testing.
The "Basic Requirements and Procedures for Self-Testing of New Coronavirus Antigens" issued by the National Health commission mentions that antigen testing is generally used for sample testing during the acute infection period, that is, within 7 days of the onset of symptoms in suspected populations.
People who are eligible for antigen testing as specified in the program:
The first is to go to the primary medical and health institutions for treatment, accompanied by respiratory tract, fever and other symptoms and symptoms within 5 days; the second is to isolate and observe personnel, including home isolation observation, close contact and sub-close connection, entry isolation observation, sealing and control area and control area of personnel; third, community residents with antigen self-testing needs.
This is determined by the shortcomings of antigen detection, because the sensitivity of antigen detection is not high, the rate of missed detection is relatively high, and the accuracy is also low compared to nucleic acid detection. Therefore, the final diagnosis is still necessary to undergo nucleic acid testing. The rules for the use of antigen self-testing in the United States, the European Union, Australia and other places clearly state that nucleic acid testing can be supplemented but not replaced.
So, what is the significance of antigen detection?
Zhang Wenhong said that in the first stage of our fight against the epidemic in China, we have achieved "zero" through rapid combat through nucleic acid testing, but recently we have also found that after the Omilon mutation came out, the overall speed of virus transmission was accelerating. "Especially for some places where sampling is inconvenient, or because of limited medical conditions, there is no suitable condition to do amplification, antigen detection is a more convenient and rapid way to identify people infected with the new crown virus." Zhang Wenhong explains.
Therefore, nucleic acid testing is still the basis for confirming the diagnosis of new coronavirus infection, and antigen detection can be used as a supplementary means for screening specific populations, which is conducive to improving the ability of "early detection".
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On the evening of March 11, Shanghai Disney Resort's official Weibo announced in Both Chinese and English that Shanghai Disneyland would be restricted to the public. Since March 12, all primary and secondary schools in Shanghai have been adjusted to online teaching, and kindergartens and nurseries have stopped children from entering kindergartens.
On March 12, 10 districts (new districts) in Shenzhen and the Shenzhen-Shantou Special Cooperation Zone all issued notices to further strengthen measures related to epidemic prevention and control.
On March 12, Hangzhou issued a confirmation that 25 people have been confirmed at the SF Yuhang Transit Field, all of whom have been found within the scope of control and have been transferred to designated hospitals for isolation and treatment in a closed loop, and are currently in a stable condition.
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With the advent of the Omiljung variant, although the overall pathogenicity has decreased significantly, the spread of the virus has also greatly accelerated. In many parts of the country, the virus has spread in a short period of time.
Fortunately, official data show that as of March 11, 2022, the national new crown virus vaccination exceeded 3.1 billion doses, and the number of people who completed the full vaccination exceeded 1.2 billion. Experts say that although the protective effect of vaccination is not 100%, the risk of severe illness and death after vaccination can be significantly reduced.
For some netizens to face the idea that Aomi Kerong wants to "lie flat", Zhang Wenhong firmly opposes it. He said: "If the epidemic is allowed to spread, then the result may pay a relatively high death price." ”
In view of the current prevention and control of Aomi Kerong, Zhang Wenhong concluded that our prevention and control work will break through a little bit every time. Today, we have been able to maintain normal life and work in the process of fighting the epidemic. Tomorrow we can certainly go one step further. The ultimate goal of each step of the effort is to make our fight against the epidemic successful and our lives unaffected. Although the epidemic has still had a partial impact on people's lives, we have made great progress today compared with the fight against the epidemic two years ago.
In his view, the current overall strategy of fighting the epidemic is "accumulating small victories into big victories", and in the future, when drugs are listed, the vaccine strategy is more optimized, and very good results will be seen.
Source: CCTV News, Look at News, Guangming Net, Shanghai Nine Courts, etc