As CDC warns of US COVID-19 spread, labs frustrated over lack of tests
Filed Under:
COVID-19
Stephanie Soucheray | News Reporter | CIDRAP News
| Feb 25, 2020
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Currently, only 12 labs outside of the CDC—located in California, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, and Tennessee—have the capability to test for the virus. Peter Kyriacopoulos, the chief policy officer for APHL, told CIDRAP News the testing process could be dramatically shortened and expanded if 100 APHL-member labs receive authorization to do their own tests.
He said yesterday that the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) addressed a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking for permission for member laboratories to use lab-developed tests between now and when the improved CDC kit is re-sent. Permission has to be granted because the FDA already issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) authority for the CDC’s test.
“We know because of the prevalence of this issue in the media, many of our labs may be called to do testing, and they will want to be responsive,” said Kyriacopoulos. He explained that the labs could do manual extraction of the virus RNA, but testing would be more streamlined if they were allowed to use automated RNA extraction platforms. He said the automatic extraction devices would cost each lab about $200,000.
Joanne Barkus, PhD, the director of the Public Health Laboratory at the Minnesota Department of Health, said she is frustrated by the delay.
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White House requests emergency funds
Michael T. Osterholm, MPH, PhD, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which published CIDRAP News, said he has received several calls from the media questioning if the delay in test kits is actually a plot devised by President Donald Trump to hide US case numbers.
“I do not believe that,” Osterholm said. “It’s an unfortunate situation and is something the CDC has stumbled on.”
Yesterday Trump asked Congress for $1.25 billion in new emergency funds for the COVID-19 response, the Washington Post reported. The White House also asked Congress to access to $535 million that had been set aside to fight Ebola.
Coronavirus: a contaminated German 60 km from the Belgian border
Two new cases of Covid-19 contamination were diagnosed in Germany on Tuesday, according to regional authorities.
Posted on 25/02/2020 at 23:19 by Belga
A German patient, originally from Erkelenz in North Rhine-Westphalia, about sixty kilometers from the Belgian border, has been confirmed infected with the new coronavirus, German authorities said on Tuesday, quoted by the dpa and ANP agencies. The person was transported to a university hospital in Düsseldorf (north-west).
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Due to the recognized case in the regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia, schools and daycare centers in the city of Heinsberg, located near the border with the Netherlands, will be closed as a precaution on Wednesday, according to the Westdeutscher Rundfunk media. (WDR).
In addition, a 25-year-old man was also hospitalized in solitary confinement in the regional state of Baden-Württemberg (southwest). He would probably have been infected in Italy, in Milan.
These new cases bring the number of people infected in Germany to 18. The other affected people are treated in Bavaria (south) and Hesse (west).
NEW: Brazil’s Health Ministry says a man has tested positive for coronavirus in an initial test, but they’re waiting for results from a 2nd test. If confirmed. it would be South America’s first case