On March 11, the Comprehensive Group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the notice of the "Application Plan for Antigen Detection of the New Coronavirus (Trial)", and decided to add antigen detection as a supplement to the nucleic acid testing. With the blessing of policies, the new crown virus self-test market with an annual scale of hundreds of billions of yuan is taking shape.
The State Food and Drug Administration approved the listing of new crown antigen self-test products
On March 12, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a notice approving 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 Biology. (Figure 1) Since then, five new crown antigen self-test products have been officially launched.
Figure 1 Relevant policies (Source: State Food and Drug Administration)
In addition, it is worth mentioning that on the 11th, the official website of the National Health and Health Commission officially issued the "Notice on Printing and Distributing the Application Plan for The Detection of New Coronavirus Antigens (Trial)", indicating that after research, the Comprehensive Group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council in Response to the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic decided to add antigen detection as a supplement on the basis of nucleic acid testing, and organized the formulation of the "Application Plan for The Detection of New Coronavirus Antigens (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). For the first time, the Plan clarifies the relevant policies for self-testing of new coronavirus antigens. According to the Plan, community residents who have covid-19 self-testing needs can purchase antigen testing reagents for self-testing through retail pharmacies, online sales platforms and other channels. However, at that time, a number of business people said that the new crown antigen detection reagent can only be sold in retail pharmacies and other channels if it obtains the "self-test qualification".
Meituan bought drugs to launch the first new crown antigen self-test products
On March 13, Meituan Buy has launched a new crown antigen self-test product. After logging into the Meituan App or meituan takeaway App to enter the drug channel, you can make a purchase in the page, and you can also find related products by searching for "NEW CROWN Antigen Self-Test" or clicking on the "New Crown Self-Test" area in the Meituan Buy Drug Channel (Figure 2). Users can see on the purchase page released today by Meituan Buy, the product is a new crown virus antigen test kit, which will be shipped on March 20 after making an appointment to purchase, and users can conduct home self-testing according to the product manual, and the results can be observed in 15-20 minutes. The product is currently in "Sold Out" status.
Figure 2 Meituan buys drugs new crown antigen product page (source: Meituan app)
According to the relevant person in charge of Meituan's drug purchase, from now on, users can make an appointment to purchase relevant products through pharmacies shipped nationwide in the Meituan drug channel, and merchants will use express delivery for users from the 20th; At the same time, Meituan Buy Medicine has also joined hands with many chain pharmacies such as the People's Pharmacy, the National University Pharmacy, Gaoji Medical, Neptune Star, Dashenlin Pharmacy, Quanyuantang Pharmacy, etc., and is expected to launch the new crown antigen self-test products synchronously with offline pharmacies within a week, and jointly provide users with 30 minutes of drug delivery service.
Antigen testing vs nucleic acid testing, which is better?
The self-test box is tested against the antigen, while the nucleic acid test is directly detected by the viral nucleic acid to determine whether it is infected. When the infected person is in the window and late stage of infection, the viral antigen content is low, and the antigen detection may not be detected, and the nucleic acid detection is not affected by this. In addition, for new variants of viruses, antigen testing can also be misjudged because it cannot be identified, but nucleic acid testing does not. Therefore, antigen detection is more likely to be missed than nucleic acid testing. However, nucleic acid detection requires a long time (1 to 6 hours), requires the operation of professionals such as medical personnel, and also requires professional equipment such as PCR amplification instruments, and the aseptic environment should be guaranteed during testing, which is a high requirement. Antigen testing is faster, more accessible to non-healthcare providers, and easier to perform.
In general, rapid home antigen testing cannot completely replace nucleic acid testing, and nucleic acid testing is still the basis for confirming the diagnosis of new coronavirus infection. If the antigen test is positive, further nucleic acid testing is required as soon as possible to confirm the diagnosis.
Source: Kazakh International News Agency, for academic exchanges only.
Written by | Qiao Weijun
Typography | Qiao Weijun
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