We repeated the mistakes of the USA - Russian virologist
From the very beginning, the COVID-19 testing strategy in the Russian Federation was wrong.
Sergei Netosov, a molecular biologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Virology of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University, spoke about this in an interview with Izvestia.
According to him, initially tests were taken only if there were three indicators - a temperature of over 38, pneumonia and arrival from abroad, and then a cough was added to the indicators.
“At the same time, asymptomatic people who came to the country were completely ignored. Moreover, there were people who returned from travel with mild cold symptoms and tried to get tested, but they were not taken. This is what we have now.
It was necessary to immediately create the widest possible network of laboratories so that people could take the test without waiting in line and get results within XNUMX hours. And even better - an express test, so that you receive an SMS with the result within an hour or two,” Netesev said.
He recalled that the country with the highest level of testing per capita is still South Korea, where, along with China, the fight against infection is most successful.
“And the biggest mistake with testing was made first in Italy, in a number of European countries, and then also in the USA. The states followed the same path as we did later: they temporarily banned the production of test systems by private commercial companies and the testing of samples from citizens without signs of illness. At first, only the government organization CDC made test systems.
Private traders were allowed to test when it became clear that the epidemic was becoming uncontrollable. These companies apparently worked four shifts, and America is now the leader in the absolute number of tests. Within a week, the United States moved from fifth to first place in testing people, but two weeks were lost, and the epidemic there is only now beginning to slow down,” the scientist noted.
He believes that as soon as the nucleotide sequence of the virus became known back in January, all commercial companies should have been announced to start producing test systems, subject to official registration.
“And we gave them such permission only two or three weeks ago.
Now we need to make sure that everyone can be tested with commercial tests and receive an answer within XNUMX hours. There are such diagnostic companies in the country, but it is necessary to expand the network of points allowed to take samples as much as possible,” the virologist emphasized.
He says that already last week four or five Russian companies registered their tests and began production.
He also gave a forecast of the likely development of events.
“The most likely scenario is like in the USA, because, surprisingly, we repeated many of their mistakes. And an example should have been taken from Korea,” concluded Netosov.
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