Abstract
Since the beginning of the New Year 2020, countries around the world are stumbling due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Better approaches of diagnostics and medical facilities have helped some countries recover early. Previous exposures to epidemics have imparted lessons to handle such a pandemic with a high level of preparedness. The World Health Organization (WHO) and national health authorities are taking great efforts via efficient and impactful interventions to contain the virus. Diagnostic tests such as reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction are increasingly being used to confirm the diagnosis because testing biological samples for the presence of the virus is the definitive method to identify the disease, analyze the risk for transmission, and determine whether someone has been cured or not. It is also important to screen asymptomatic individuals to get the exact overview of the virus spread. Antibody detection plays a pivotal role in diagnosis; however, using it at the wrong time yields negative results and conveys dissenting opinion about the tests. Although the scaling up of testing has been significant, overall testing has been limited by the availability of diagnostics. Rapid diagnoses and discontinuation of transmission are keys to ending this pandemic. Diagnostics manufacturers are developing test kits and distributing them to different countries. Therefore, more than 500 commercial test kits for molecular- and immunoassays, most with Emergency Use Authorization, are now becoming available in the market. In this review, we discuss the importance of diagnostics, approaches of different countries toward the epidemic, global testing situation, and lessons to countries at the start of the epidemic for better preparedness.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19)pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first notified to the Country office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in China on December 31, 2019, as pneumonia of unknown etiology
Conclusion the expansion of testing for COVID-19 will differ based on the country and socio-economic status, acknowledging and learning from the experiences of different countries is the key to designing and implementing test expansions within a country
Since many countries are still in the early stage of infection and its monitoring, they can contain the epidemic if they apply the measures that have proven efficacious in countries that have already experienced the epidemic
Summary
Pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first notified to the Country office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in China on December 31, 2019, as pneumonia of unknown etiology. Peru has only two COVID-19 testing facilities, both in the capital, Lima[46] They are not as accurate as PCR tests, the government is seeking a million rapid diagnostic tests and plans to use them to help hospitals gauge how many healthcare workers have been infected, to be able to test and identify individuals and locate their close contacts. Countries are making rapid antibody test kits (IgM/IgG) available to conduct surveillance and get a clear picture of the distribution of the virus and developed herd immunity They should be used at the right time, as many negative results in the early stage of the infection may not serve the purpose.
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