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The quarantine virus infection is likely to be tested with a new type of smear, not from the nose but from the anus.
Chinese state media channels have announced a new test protocol in recent days, prompting widespread debate and some public outrage. Some Chinese scientists argue that it is a scientifically based solution. According to them, recovering patients can test positive for lower gastrointestinal tract virus infection even when nose and throat swabs indicate that the virus is no longer present in their body.
However, for some people in this tightly controlled state, it seems that such government intervention in people’s lives is already too intimate, given that they have been living in a self-reliance pandemic for years.
“Everyone involved in the process will be very embarrassed,” a resident of Guangdong province told Weibo on Wednesday. A survey conducted on the same social platform showed that 80 percent. respondents “cannot” accept such an invasive test method.
Even Chinese doctors who support the application of the new test method acknowledge that the drawback of the method is such that its application would only make sense for a very limited population, such as quarantine centers at the time.
“If an anal swab test method is introduced, it could increase the number of identifiable infected patients. But of course, since anal swabs are not as convenient as throat swabs, at present, both test methods will only be applied to exceptional groups, such as those currently in quarantine centers, “said Li Tongzeng , You’an Igne Disease Specialist from Beijing.
The new study protocol was introduced a year after the sudden spread of the coronavirus in China. Authorities are now concerned that the Eastern New Year celebrations will take place next month, prompting one of the largest internal migrations in the world – about 3 billion in the year without a pandemic. trip. And this means that a single secret case of coronavirus can increase the number of new cases very quickly.
China aims to vaccinate at least 50 million people before the Christmas season. of its population, but this is only 4%. all populations are too small to prevent the massive spread of the disease.
Authorities have tightened restrictions in recent weeks: In areas with isolated outbreaks, tens of millions of Chinese have returned to living under strict quarantine. As before, people from other countries are initially quarantined in a hotel for two weeks. However, an additional week of home quarantine and a week of daily health reports have now been added for the health care system.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has not avoided imposing extremely strict quarantine conditions to limit the spread of the coronavirus, even if those restrictions caused enormous inconvenience to the population. In the early days of the quarantine, public health officials even boiled apartment doors to keep people out. Millions of people were rounded up and taken to testing centers every day. Even in the dark streets of the city, huge lines of people formed.
Following the outbreak identified at Shanghai International Airport in November, state officials blocked thousands of employees at the airport to test each of them. This caused terrible congestion.
And now, with no way to reduce the number of new cases to a tolerable level before the Christmas season, authorities are taking new restrictive measures and adopting rules that allow the application of anal swabs.
This test procedure was tested by Chinese experts with small populations last year, and the research data was published in scientific journals. A group of Chinese researchers published an article in the journal Future Microbiology in August stating that some patients recovering from COVID-19 had viral cells detected in anal swabs even when the nasal and throat swabs were negative.
“Interestingly, the SARS-CoV-2 test was positive in an anal smear in two patients with negative throat and nose smears. We offer anal swabs as a potentially optimal way to detect SARS-CoV-2 by assessing whether COVID-19 patients can already be discharged from the hospital, ”the study authors wrote.
The protocol for such tests was published in March last year by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. According to this protocol, a stool sample should be taken from patients or, if this is not possible, an anal sample should be taken with a cotton swab inserted 5 centimeters into the anus.
In recent days, the Chinese government-controlled Global Times also noted that such an investigation is controversial, with some doctors saying nasal and throat swabs are more effective because the coronavirus is largely a respiratory infection.
“There have been cases of the virus being detected in the feces of patients undergoing coronavirus tests, but there is no evidence that the infection is transmitted through the digestive system,” a Chinese publication said, citing Yuan Zhanqiu, a pathologist at the University of Wuhan. .
There are many comments on Chinese social media expressing disbelief in such a decision and concerns about the new testing procedure.
“It will be difficult for the nurses,” wrote a Weibo user.
“Now we will have to work hard not to get infected with the coronavirus!”
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