As of August 6, the Philippines has overtaken Indonesia for the most number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia. Government officials say the rapid rise in cases owes partly to the Philippines’s expanded testing capacity. However, also possibly contributing to the rapid rise in the number of cases is inadequate, delayed and wrong kind of testing, according to some experts.
Dr. Antonio Dans, spokesperson of The Healthcare Professions Alliance Against Covid-19, has been quoted as saying that the use of rapid antibody tests to screen for coronavirus disease gave a false sense of security and could have aggravated the outbreak in the Philippines. He said that such tests are able to detect only half of those who are actually sick of the virus.
The group that Dr. Dans represents and several medical societies are asking the public and private sectors to stop using rapid antibody tests and are pushing for the use of Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR testing, the gold standard of Covid-19 testing for its accuracy.
However, PCR testing is also sometimes hounded by issues like results being delayed because of testing backlogs or lack of chemicals, or when the tests are not done at all because of high cost and distance of the patient to the laboratory.
Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men and at the forefront of Covid-19 vaccine development, has been quoted as saying, “Right now, this thing where you wait more than three days, sometimes seven days to get a test, nobody should pay $1 for that. That’s insane,” Gates said in a recent interview. “You need to get it back as soon as possible so that somebody can change their behavior, so they’re not infecting other people.”
Amid fears that the Philippines has become the epicenter of the coronavirus in Southeast Asia, a test that combines the accuracy of PCR with the lower cost, speed and convenience of rapid antibody tests has recently been unveiled.
Such a test is now available in the Philippines. The Shineway Marcus Portable PCR system combines the 99-percent accuracy of PCR without needing a laboratory so it can be used at point of care and off-site. Being truly portable, the size of a carry-on bag, the said PCR system can be brought where numerous people need to be tested quickly and accurately, for example in workplaces, airports and other transportation hubs, and in infection hot spots. Thus, the point-of-care PCR test can complement the 99 Covid-19 labs presently licensed in the Philippines.
“A technological leap in the Gold Standard of testing, the Shineway Marcus Portable PCR system was designed for off-site testing that can give test results in 45 minutes,” according to Yaying Hong, VP for sales and marketing of Shenzhen Shineway Technology Corporate, the manufacturer of the system. According to its Philippine distributor, the PCR system can perform 32 to 96 tests every 45 minutes using the WHO-EUL detection kit.
Regular PCR testing requires the use of laboratories with a high degree of biosecurity because they handle and transport live viruses. On the other hand, the point-of-care PCR system tests swabs where they are obtained. The viruses in the swabs are chemically inactivated prior to processing, thus enhancing safety of the process, according to its distributor in the country.
The PCR system was developed by a team of researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), the 27th top ranked university in the world. The researchers designed the PCR system from the start for off-site use, affordability with system costs half the price of conventional analyzer, and lower operating cost with less reagent consumption.
The Shineway Marcus Portable PCR system has obtained various certifications, including the CE mark from Europe, and is currently in use in the US, Italy, Sweden, Norway in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Palestine and Israel in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea in Asia and in Australia.
Image credits: Shenzhen Shineway Technology Corporate
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