[ad_1]
Keep sliding! There is more news for you.
The shortage of reagents in the world makes the diagnosis of COVID-19 in the countries it marches at a slow pace and even that it pauses the practice of tests.
Concern about the lack of reagents has been manifested in press headlines worldwide. The reagents have become one of the most desired items in the world, among others, such as fans, face masks, and biosafety suits.
The acquisition of these has become a kind of auction, in which the offer has grown and the countries have begun to fight to keep them.
Not only with reagents, but with other elements used to deal with COVID-19.
In fact, a few weeks ago, Spain and Turkey had a rifirrafe for the acquisition of fans.
The above, because despite the fact that Spain had paid for them, Turkey, where they had been manufactured, had them retained, hinting that they needed them more than the other country.
In fact, when the controversy was generated, it was said that the 150 fans who were waiting, and for which the government of Castilla-La Mancha had paid 3 million euros, came from China and passed through Turkey. After a diplomatic impasse, Turkey ended up sending fans.
In this auction, For some countries, the offer of the highest bidder does not matter, since they have put the benefit of their own peoples ahead. This is how in Germany and the United States, large producers of fans and reagents, have canceled exports.
Importance
Reagents is a term that has now become more familiar in common parlance due to the pandemic. As ABOUT CABINS defined the doctor in Biomedical Sciences Homero San Juan, reagents are all the chemical elements necessary to produce a reaction, regardless of whether they are inorganic or organic.
But … Why are they so important? San Juan explained that the lack of reagents imposes “a tremendous barrier in the sense that it limits the performance of tests” of COVID-19.
He indicated that the affected reagents in the supply chain correspond to those needed in nucleic acid extraction.
In the same sense, the doctor in Biochemistry Antonio Acosta, who is the director of the Laboratory of Genetics and Molecular Biology of the Simón Bolívar University, pointed out that the lack of reagents would prevent the diagnosis. “By not testing, you cannot know the diagnosis, who does or does not have COVID-19, and you cannot do the epidemiological fence.”
Acosta added that the more diagnosis one can make, the more one can see how the disease progresses and, therefore, what measures should be taken in this regard.
Colombia
So far, South Korea remains one of the countries that is exporting the most reactive products.
They are not produced in Colombia, so the government has had to import them. However, despite the fact that they have had the resources, after the high demand, they are slow to arrive.
However, amid the tensions over this chemical that has turned into gold during COVID-19, the Colombian government announced last Wednesday that the National Institute of Health (INS) will acquire extraction kits for the processing of tests.
“With this news that the extraction kits for 500 thousand tests left China, the horizon in the country changes,” said the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz Gómez.
The minister explained that with these kits the capacity of the entire laboratory system would be doubled or tripled.
The news was celebrated by the Government, which, according to President Iván Duque, has worked “tirelessly” to seek medical resources to deal with this pandemic.
In fact, it stated: “The complex thing is that the countries that produce this type of element do not allow their export because they are experiencing an emergency similar to ours.”
Likewise, last Wednesday the Ministry of Health received 20 thousand kits for taking COVID-19 tests, donated by Luis Carlos Sarmiento Ángulo.
Reagents on the Coast
At first, only the National Institute of Health was practicing the COVID -19 tests; However, little by little they have been expanding the network of laboratories so that the country can advance much faster in diagnosis.
To date, there are already 14 departments and 50 laboratories that are enabled by the country’s health secretariats and those that have the technical support of the INS to carry out tests.
In the Atlantic the Public Health Laboratory works, the one of the Simón Bolívar University and now the one of the University of the Atlantic also began to work.
In Córdoba, Sucre and Bolívar there are private university laboratories (one in each city) and in Cesar the Public Health Laboratory is enabled.
All of these cities became bidders for the great ‘auction’ for the reagents. In fact, despite the fact that the Unisucre laboratory already had the endorsement of the INS to operate, it took a few days to start practicing tests due to the lack of reagents.
For his part, the Secretary of Health of the Atlantic, Alma Solano, said that the first request they made for reagents was more than 50 days ago and they have not yet reached them. “The world problem is in the extraction reagents. We need molecular tests, this is not the time to do rapid tests, we need to know who is infected to do the blocks, “said the official.
The Magdalena tests were being processed in the Atlantic, and although the latter had assumed the cost of the reagents, it will no longer be able to continue to do so due to a global lack of them. So it will be the INS that processes the Magdalena tests, as well as those of La Guajira.
In Córdoba, according to the directives of the public university (where the Biological Research Institute of the Tropics, IIBT works), until last April 29, 414 tests had been carried out with reagents purchased with own resources after purchasing from a supplier in Korea.
However, the institute warned that it only has reagents left to practice COVID-19 tests until May 2.
In the case of Cesar, the Wurzburg Medical Mission Institute donated 900 reagent kits to the Governor’s Office to process the same number of COVID-19 samples.
The input will increase the daily capacity for processing the tests locally, going from an average of 45 to 100 per day at the Cesar Public Health Laboratory. Even so, taking this calculation into account, the new reagents would also last only for a few weeks.
In this way, even though the ‘bidders’ offer and have the resources, the high demand hinders the shipment of this chemical component that in times of COVID-19 has become as valuable as gold.
“The goal is to reach 1,200,000 tests”
The director of the National Institute of Health, Martha Ospina, announced that after the arrival of the 500 thousand reagents and the two robots that carry out the automated extraction process, a minimum of 2,000 tests per day can be performed.
However, he assured that there can be many more with the help of the other teams. “We have an important installed capacity that is completed with the 500 thousand extraction kits and the goal is to have 1,200,000 tests carried out by the entire joint network of laboratories in this quarter from May to June,” Ospina said.
[ad_2]
