{"id":100790,"date":"2020-04-05T22:50:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T04:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=100790"},"modified":"2020-04-05T15:36:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T22:36:01","slug":"the-government-medical-officers-association-gmoa-is-misleading-the-nation-and-recommends-the-wrong-test-for-identifying-infected-persons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/05\/the-government-medical-officers-association-gmoa-is-misleading-the-nation-and-recommends-the-wrong-test-for-identifying-infected-persons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA ) is misleading the nation and recommends the wrong test for identifying infected persons."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) today urged\nthe health authorities to speed up the COVID-19 testing of some 42,000\npersonnel who have been in contact with over 160 patients tested positive for\nthe virus in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GMOA member Dr. Naveen De Soyza said it was revealed at a\nmeeting held at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday that about 42,000 people\nhave been in contact with those tested positive. He said the current pace of\ntesting was not adequate to efficiently counter the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have requested the authorities to immediately conduct the blood tests for COVID-19 instead of the usual PCR test which is time-consuming,” he said. The GMOA requested to increase the number of tests done per day to isolate infected people as much as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently the GMOA member Dr. Naveen De Soyza is not aware of the test facilities available for identifying coronavirus infected persons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blood test Dr. Naveen De Soyza is refereeing to the\nantibodies test suitable for patients to check the immunity after recovering\nfrom the infections and not suitable for those who are having the infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following information is extracted BBC website.<\/p>\n\n\n

Coronavirus: Why does testing matter?<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

By Rachel SchraerHealth reporter Courtesy BBC<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n

The UK has announced new plans to boost testing\nfor coronavirus following widespread criticism for not increasing the number of\ntests more quickly.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why is testing important and how does the UK\ncompare with other countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the\ntest?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main type of test to see if someone has Covid-19, is taking a swab of their nose or throat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is sent off to a lab to look for signs of\nthe virus’s genetic material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I get\ntested?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing is not yet available for most people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, most tests are reserved for\nseriously ill patients in hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It means the majority of people who have\nsymptoms can’t find out if they are currently infected with coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tests are now being made available to doctors\nand nurses who have symptoms, or who live in a household with someone who does.\nTests for other health and care workers will follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday\nthat 5,000 NHS staff had now been tested across various testing sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, 163,100 people in the UK have been\ntested since the end of January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why isn’t the\nUK doing more tests?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK has not had the resources to do mass\ntesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday:\n“We have the best scientific labs in the world but we did not have the\nscale. My German counterpart for instance could call upon 100 testing labs\nready and waiting when the crisis struck.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is aiming to carry out 100,000\ntests a day in England by the end of April. By 2 April, daily testing had\nreached around 10,200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some NHS trusts say they can only carry out a\nlimited number of tests because of shortages of swabs, testing kits and\nreagents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reagent is the substance used to extract the\nvirus’s genetic material so it can be studied more easily. At the moment there\nis high global demand for reagents, which is why they are hard to obtain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, Public Health England was only using\nits own eight laboratories. This has been expanded to 40 NHS labs – so, 48 labs\nin total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government says it is now working to recruit\nmore laboratories at universities and research institutes. These will be used\nto test NHS workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans have also been announced to work with\ncommercial partners such as Boots and Amazon, as well as with big\npharmaceutical companies to build up the UK’s diagnostic capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is\ntesting important?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two main reasons for testing people – to\ndiagnose who has got the virus and who has had it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having this information could help the health\nservice plan for extra demand, including on intensive care units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testing could also inform decisions around\nsocial distancing measures. For example, if large numbers of people were found\nto have already been infected, then a lockdown might become less necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not testing more widely means many people\nmight be self-isolating for no reason, including NHS workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An antibody test<\/strong> is used\nto see whether someone has already had the virus. They look for signs of\nimmunity in the blood by using a drop of blood on a device, a bit like a\npregnancy test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has bought three-and-a-half\nmillion antibody tests, but they are not yet available to use. The tests are\nstill being checked to make sure they work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How about the\nrest of the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Korea, which has been able to test far\nmore widely than the UK has, acted very quickly to approve the production of\ntesting kits, allowing it to build up a stockpile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite having a slightly smaller population\nthan the UK, it has twice as many labs and about two-and-a-half times the\nweekly testing capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Germany has carried out more than three times as\nmany tests as the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 27 March, it had tested 1,096 per 100,000\ncitizens, while as of 1 April, the UK had tested 348 per 100,000 of the\npopulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That compares with 895 per 100,000 for Italy,\n842 per 100,000 for South Korea, 348 per 100,000 for USA and 27 per 100,000 for\nJapan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka News The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) today urged the health authorities to speed up the COVID-19 testing of some 42,000 personnel who have been in contact with over 160 patients tested positive for the virus in the country. GMOA member Dr. Naveen De Soyza said it was revealed at a meeting held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}