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On Monday, Health Minister A. Veryga instructed the National Public Health Laboratory to issue 54540 rapid tests “Rapid Test AMP SARS-CoV-2 IgG / IgM” to municipalities.
The directors of the municipal administrations must distribute the received tests to the medical institutions that will carry out the tests.
The municipalities of Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda will have the highest number of rapid tests, as well as the districts of Šiauliai, Panevėžys, Alytus, Vilnius and Kaunas, Marijampolė, the municipalities of the Mažeikiai district. You can find the complete list here.
Sigismund Gedvila / 15min photo / Aurelijus Veryga
“Teachers belong to a group of high-risk society that constantly contacts and visits places with a high concentration of people. The objective of this free test is to know and self-assess which part of the population may be infected by coronavirus and more easily predict the epidemiological situation in the future, ”the Ministry of Health announced in a press release on Tuesday.
It emphasizes that rapid serological tests are not adequate to diagnose an existing disease, so a positive result for a coronavirus will require education staff to test for the disease today.
True, the report does not indicate whether employees of educational institutions will have to isolate themselves after receiving a positive rapid test.
The study is optional
During a press conference on Tuesday, Minister A.Veryga stated that in such a situation one should isolate oneself.
I would suggest such a person […] isolate.
“By common logic, if the rapid test were positive, and according to current procedures and guidelines, a person should register for the PCR test, I would suggest that person […] be isolated, ”he said.
Isolation, according to A.Veryga, should continue until a COVID test is performed by taking a sample from the nasopharynx and the answer is clear.
“The illness or absence of a teacher for a day or two at work is not great news for educational institutions. Until now, educational institutions have been sorting, finding out who temporarily replaces the teacher. I have no doubt that he will find it now, “he said.
R.Veryga mentioned last week about the fact that rapid tests (when analyzing human blood instead of samples of mucous membranes from the airways) will be used to study employees who have returned to educational institutions. He stressed that the investigation will not be mandatory.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Coronavirus
“It just came to our knowledge then. It will be like the opportunity to do such a test.
The municipalities will have to plan with the health institutions and plan a personal health care specialist, most likely a nurse, who would come to the educational institution and could take these tests and enter them into the electronic health system ”, commented the Minister .
Rapid tests are generally used to find out if a person has had COVID-19 and has developed immunity to the disease. Rapid tests should not be used to try to find out if a person is currently suffering from coronavirus; They are not reliable.
They are completely inappropriate and cannot be used to confirm the diagnosis of COVID-19.
“Rapid serological tests, if they work, detect an immune response to an infection that takes up to 2 weeks from the onset of symptoms to develop, not the virus itself. As a result, they are completely inappropriate and cannot be used to confirm a COVID-19 diagnosis, “said Tum Beinort, a physician at Cambridge University Hospital.
Suspected COVID-19 cases have not been confirmed
Aurelija Žvirblienė, a scientist at the Vilnius University Center for Life Sciences, taught the same position. She assured me that it is not appropriate to evaluate teachers with rapid tests.
The rapid tests were also acquired by the Lithuanian Armed Forces this spring. According to her, the tests verified the recruits returning from home. However, none of the suspected coronavirus cases detected by rapid tests were confirmed by subsequent laboratory tests, writes BNS.
“It was these tests that screened recruits returning from home each time, and it was only after a positive rapid test result that soldiers were isolated and screened precisely for diagnosis or denial of COVID-19 (there were many cases of this type, but in all cases after the rapid test 19 identification tests, the answers of the latter were negative) ”, said the representative of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
When asked why employees of educational institutions should undergo rapid tests, A.Veryga previously explained that this community is concerned and wants to give them the opportunity to be tested. She also emphasized that a person who develops immunity to COVID-19 can still be sick.
“The fact that the formation of antibodies is detected does not mean that a person has stopped getting sick. There may be such cases, but there may also be cases where the chimneys are identified, the minister said. – We won’t find many of them, but it will definitely add some security and confidence to people who have to return [į mokyklas]and who is at risk. “
During the next press conference, A.Veryga stated that not only teachers will be evaluated through rapid tests. The main purpose of the studies, he said, was to discover “a certain epidemiological situation” and not to identify those infected with COVID-19.
Assume there is nowhere to put the evidence
The National Public Health Laboratory in March for more than 6 million. More than half a million tests from an Austrian manufacturer were purchased from Profarma. Most of them have not been used so far because they are not suitable for rapid diagnosis of COVID-19, writes BNS.
Some of the rapid tests are currently used for stock research, and the Financial Crimes Investigation Service is investigating the circumstances of their purchase.
Julius Kalibatas, president of the Association of General Practitioners (Family), evaluated the initiative of the Ministry to examine employees of educational institutions through rapid tests, and assumed that they had nowhere to locate them.
To really help teachers, they need to be tested and found out if they are infected with the virus.
Teachers, he said, should do COVID-19 molecular PCR assays.
“To really help teachers, you need to test them like all medical staff and find out if they are infected with the virus or pose a risk to students and those around them. And if the ministry has nowhere to put the rapid tests, what is it, then it is another problem for the Ministry of Health, ”J. Kalibatas wrote in the comment. You can find it all here.
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