The biggest advantage of antigen testing is that it is conducive to the early detection and avoidance of nucleic acid testing.
The full text is 2019 words, and it takes about 4 minutes to read
Text/Zhang Tiankan (columnist) Editor Li Xiaoxiao Proofreader Liu Jun
▲On March 11, the Medical Administration Bureau of the National Health Commission announced the Notice on Printing and Distributing the Application Plan for The Detection of New Coronavirus Antigens (Trial) and the Policy Interpretation of the Application Plan for the Detection of New Coronavirus Antigens (Trial). Photo / Screenshot of the official website of the National Health Commission
Due to the superposition of imported cases and local cases, the current epidemic situation in China is locally clustered and multi-point sporadic. To this end, on the afternoon of March 10, the video conference on epidemic prevention and control of the comprehensive group of the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council stressed that it is necessary to adhere to the early, small, strict and solid, scientific and accurate implementation of relevant epidemic prevention measures, normalization of prevention and control threshold should be moved forward, and resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic.
On March 11, the National Health Commission issued a notice saying that the comprehensive group of the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council decided to add antigen testing as a supplement to nucleic acid testing. On March 12, the State Food and Drug Administration announced that it approved the application change of the self-test application of new crown antigen products in Nanjing Novizan, Beijing Jinwolf, Shenzhen Huada Inyuan, Guangzhou Wanfu Biology, and Beijing Huaketai Biologics.
Since then, 5 new crown antigen self-test products have been officially launched. This is undoubtedly a positive measure to further optimize the mainland's new crown virus detection strategy, move the normalization prevention and control threshold forward, more effectively grasp the early and small, and serve the current epidemic prevention and control needs.
▲Recently, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a notice to approve the application change of the self-test application of new crown antigen products such as Nanjing Nuoweizan, and since then, 5 new crown antigen self-test products have been officially listed. Photo/ Screenshot of the official website of the State Drug Administration
━━━━━
Ease of use is an advantage for antigen detection
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, one of the effective and important means of fighting the epidemic has been nucleic acid testing, also known as the gold standard. Today, adding antigen detection is one more means of detection.
According to the principles of immunology, any substance that can induce an immune response in the body is an antigen. Therefore, the virus itself, the nucleic acid of the virus, and part of the shell and envelope of the virus are antigens.
In fact, detecting nucleic acids is also testing for antigens. Moreover, it should be recognized that nucleic acid testing is more accurate than antigen detection because it uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify viral nucleic acid fragments to a certain extent to show whether the virus is infected.
However, nucleic acid testing has many technical conditions and personnel limitations, and it takes a long time, requiring at least one day to produce results. In contrast, the advantages of time-saving, labor-saving and simplicity of antigen detection are revealed.
First of all, antigen test kits or test strips can now be purchased on the market, which is easy to operate and generally can produce test results in 15 minutes, which is very suitable for home self-testing.
In addition, the cost of antigen testing is currently similar to nucleic acid testing, but after the launch of multiple antigen self-test products, the cost can be lower than that of nucleic acid testing. Some professionals believe that the factory price of antigen detection kits is about 5 yuan per person, 8 to 10 yuan for 2 people, and its terminal price is about 20 yuan / person.
In addition to the price, the biggest advantage of antigen detection is that it is conducive to the early detection and avoidance of the social mobilization of nucleic acid testing, and thus avoids further infections that may be caused by the spatio-temporal aggregation of concentrated nucleic acid testing populations.
Due to the ease of use, individuals can purchase their own antigen test kits to test themselves when they feel unwell, and if there is any abnormality, take further measures in a timely manner.
Therefore, the increased antigen detection can be conducive to the current epidemic prevention and control in many aspects, and to a certain extent, it meets the needs of grasping small early and moving forward.
▲ On March 11, 2022, residents of a residential community in Jilin City, Jilin Province, were doing the sixth round of nucleic acid testing and sampling. Figure/IC photo
Active self-testing is conducive to moving the prevention and control threshold forward
Of course, as a medical test, individual self-test antigens also need to master some principles and methods.
In terms of methods, samples can be collected according to the "Basic Requirements and Procedures for Testing for New Coronavirus Antigens in Primary Medical and Health Institutions", with nasopharyngeal swabs, oropharyngeal swabs, and standardized operations according to the requirements of the reagent instructions used. Self-examiners between the ages of 2 and 14 may be sampled by an adult, and nasal swabs may be taken on their own by those over 14 years of age.
In terms of suitable populations, it is necessary to distinguish which people are suitable for antigen testing and which people should be tested for nucleic acid.
If the medical institution has the ability to test nucleic acid for those who have symptoms such as respiratory tract and fever and have had symptoms within 5 days, the first choice for nucleic acid testing should be carried out; if there is no nucleic acid testing ability, antigen detection can be carried out first.
For those under quarantine observation, including home isolation observation, close and sub-close contact, entry isolation observation, sealing and control area and control area, nucleic acid testing should be carried out in accordance with the current prevention and control plan during the isolation and observation period, but within the first 5 days, antigen self-testing can be carried out once a day.
Other individuals who are willing to test themselves or feel unwell can purchase antigen detection reagents and take the initiative to test themselves through channels such as retail pharmacies and online sales platforms.
If the antigen test of the isolation observer is positive, a nucleic acid test must be immediately carried out to confirm it; if the individual tests positive for antigen, regardless of whether there are respiratory tract, fever and other symptoms, it should be immediately reported to the community (village or town), who will be transferred to the medical institution that has set up a fever clinic for nucleic acid testing in accordance with the guidelines for the transfer of personnel related to the new crown pneumonia epidemic.
According to the regulations, if the nucleic acid is positive, regardless of the antigen result, it is treated according to infection or diagnosis; if the nucleic acid is negative, the antigen-positive person is regarded as a person infected with the new crown virus and takes measures such as centralized isolation. For primary health care institutions, nucleic acid testing should be preferred if they have the capacity.
Since the recent epidemic is characterized by asymptomatic infection, because there are no symptoms, there are not many people who actively and passively carry out nucleic acid testing, which is easy to produce epidemic prevention loopholes.
In this case, timely and adequate publicity and screening with antigen detection methods are conducive to the early detection of infected people. When antigen testing can facilitate more individuals, its anti-epidemic efficiency and good results will be further revealed, which is greatly conducive to moving the prevention and control threshold forward, blocking the transmission route of the epidemic as soon as possible, and helping to achieve dynamic clearance of the epidemic.
Duty Editor Kang Hee-hee Gully