Cua Dong General Hospital supports automatic SARS-CoV-2 virus testing system for CDC Nghe An

Attending the ceremony were comrades: Vo Thi Minh Sinh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Fatherland Front Committee; Bui Dinh Long - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; Associate Professor, Dr. Duong Dinh Chinh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Director of the Department of Health; Mr. Nguyen Xuan Kien - Chairman of the Board of Directors and representatives of the Board of Directors of Cua Dong General Hospital.

Overview of the working session. Photo: Thuy Hien

Currently, the CDC is using a manual sample extraction system to meet the testing needs of suspected cases in the community, especially those in centralized medical quarantine areas.

Speaking at the ceremony, Dr. Nguyen Van Dinh - Director of Nghe An CDC Center said: Every day the center must meet the testing needs of 300 samples or more, using 5 cars and 30 people to continuously collect samples at the facilities. However, in reality, it can only meet 160 to 200 samples per day, so the current policy of the Provincial People's Committee is to provide funding for the center to hire services to meet the requirements of epidemic prevention and control during this period.

Cua Dong General Hospital supports automatic SHPT testing system SARS-CoV-2 virus testing for Nghe An Province Center for Disease Control. Photo: Phuong Anh

Faced with that urgent situation, Cua Dong General Hospital proactively supported the molecular biology testing system along with qualified human resources for the Nghe An Provincial Center for Disease Control.

According to Master Nguyen Ngoc Thanh - in charge of Molecular Biology - Testing Department, Cua Dong General Hospital, "The fully automatic Molecular Biology testing system supported by Cua Dong General Hospital includes: DNA extraction machine, RNA aurora VERSA 1.0 and Realtime PCR MX 3000P (Aglilent Technologies), this machine is on the list of Realtime PCR testing machines approved by the Ministry of Health to screen for SARS-CoV-2 virus in Decision No. 1282/QD-BYT on "Guidelines for Covid-19 testing". The maximum capacity of the Realtime PCR machine as recommended by the manufacturer is 960 samples/day (1 day = 24 hours), the automatic extraction system is 480 samples/day, after 1 hour and 40 minutes, it will give SARS-CoV-2 virus screening test results with high accuracy. However, in reality, to achieve that capacity depends on many other factors such as chemicals, biological products, human resources... At the Hospital At Cua Dong Hospital, molecular biology techniques have been deployed for many years, specializing in virus quantification in the diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HPV typing in cervical cancer... By 2016, the hospital had invested in upgrading the entire fully automated system to serve the examination and treatment work at the hospital.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Kien - Chairman of the Board of Directors & General Director of Cua Dong General Hospital emphasized his desire to contribute to the province in the work of preventing and fighting the Covid-19 epidemic. Photo: Phuong Anh

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Kien - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cua Dong General Hospital said: “Cua Dong General Hospital is proud to own a modern, fully automatic molecular biology system. When we learned that this system of the unit is on the list approved by the Ministry of Health to screen for SARS-CoV-2 virus and the current difficulties in machinery and equipment of the province, with the noble mission of "caring for and protecting people's health", we understand and share with the CDC Center and the provincial health sector during this difficult period. Although this machine is still being used to serve the examination and treatment work at the hospital, however, I still decided to stop testing on this machine and transfer the entire system to the CDC Center with a team of qualified human resources to participate with the CDC Center in testing and screening for Covid-19; with the desire to contribute a small part with the province in the work of disease prevention and control".

Comrade Bui Dinh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee appreciated the noble and meaningful gesture of Cua Dong General Hospital to the health sector and people of the province. Photo: Thuy Hien

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Bui Dinh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee acknowledged the participation of the entire population in disease prevention and control, the tireless contributions of medical staff and doctors at the CDC Center and especially the timely support from Cua Dong General Hospital at this time. Testing machines play a very important role in the hospital's operations, but the hospital is ready to support and participate in the province's disease prevention and control work.

Comrade Bui Dinh Long said that the biggest difficulty for the province in the current epidemic prevention period is the need to speed up the process of taking samples for testing and giving the earliest results, while the testing machine system is still limited, investing in buying machines at this time is very difficult. Therefore, he acknowledged and highly appreciated the support of the testing machine system of Cua Dong General Hospital; this is a noble and meaningful gesture of the hospital towards the health sector and the people of the province. At the same time, he suggested that the CDC Center should make efforts and proactively approach new applications quickly to help the work of monitoring, preventing and fighting the Covid-19 epidemic be carried out better./.