Alibaba's AI helps detect coronavirus pneumonia within a minute

‘Medical information provider M3 has tapped Alibaba Group Holding's artificial intelligence technology to develop a diagnostic system that can quickly identify COVID-19 pneumonia in CT scan images. The system, which is awaiting approval from the health ministry, holds promise as a supplementary testing tool as Japan struggles to expand capacity for PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for the coronavirus.’

Read here (Nikkei, June 4, 2020)

No new virus sufferers, 300 asymptomatic, after Wuhan-wide tests

‘The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak began, has found no new cases of people suffering from Covid-19 (coronavirus) after testing almost its entire population, and 300 asymptomatic carriers of the virus, officials said on Tuesday (June 2). Authorities launched the vast testing campaign on May 14, and reached 9.9 million out of 11 million people, after a cluster of new cases raised fears of a second wave of infections.’

Read here (The Star, June 2, 2020)

Do not discriminate against migrant workers, Health DG warns

‘With Covid-19 infection clusters emerging in three immigration detention centres, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has said that negative sentiments against detainees must not be amplified and must not be a catalyst for discrimination in saving lives. The Health director-general said that the whole of government and whole community approach should work together to fight the virus.’

Read here (The Star, May 25, 2020)

Take a shot, isolate at hotel: Chinese volunteer 048 describes Covid-19 vaccine trial

‘We were treated pretty well, says one of 108 participants in trial in Wuhan, whose results were published on Friday. The potential vaccine has since become the world’s first to enter a second phase of human testing, according to WHO.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 25, 2020)

Covid-19 patients no longer infectious 11 days after getting sick, research shows

‘After 11 days of getting sick, Covid-19 patients no longer pose a risk of spreading the disease - which means they can be safely discharged. Singapore now discharges patients only after two swab tests are negative for the virus. But a local study has shown that while the patients might test positive, it "does not equate to infectiousness or viable virus". That's because the test detects parts of the virus' genome, but is unable to show if they are just fragments of the virus, or if an intact virus is no longer viable and can't infect anyone.’

Read here (Straits Times, May 23, 2020)

Why are Africa's coronavirus successes being overlooked?

‘Take the two African countries I have called home – Senegal and Ghana... Senegal is in a good position because its Covid-19 response planning began in earnest in January, as soon as the first international alert on the virus went out... As a result, this nation of 16 million people has had only 30 deaths... Ghana, with a population of 30 million, has a similar death toll to Senegal, partly because of an extensive system of contact tracing, utilising a large number of community health workers and volunteers, and other innovative techniques such as “pool testing”, in which multiple blood samples are tested and then followed up as individual tests only if a positive result is found. The advantages in this approach are now being studied by the World Health Organization.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 21, 2020)

Testing rate here among highest in world - over 281,000 done so far

‘Over 281,000 tests for Covid-19 have been carried out on 191,000 individuals [in Singapore] so far, the Health Ministry's director of medical services, Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, said yesterday. This comes to around 49,000 tests per million people in the country...’

‘Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the task force, pointed out that the Republic has already drastically increased its volume of daily tests [from 2,000 to 8,000 a day]. "We're today already testing at a rate that's among the highest in the world, and we want to do even more beyond this. As we reopen the economy, as we resume activities, testing capability and testing capacity will be a critical enabler for us to do all of these things safely."

Read here (Straits Times, May 20, 2020)

South Korea says patients who re-tested positive after recovering were no longer infectious

‘Survivors of Covid-19 who re-tested positive for the disease after making a full recovery were no longer infectious or a risk to their loved ones, South Korea's health agency announced Monday, adding a new clue to the ongoing mysteries surrounding Covid-19 immunity.’

Read here (Forbes, May 18, 2020)

No shortcuts and people must get used to a new way of living, warns WHO's chief scientist

‘It is critically important for governments to present facts in a way that people really understand what the Covid-19 coronavirus is, and the logic behind some of the measures put in place, said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO). When countries open up, their basic principle must be to test people with symptoms, identify the contacts and quarantine them until they are free of the risk of getting the disease, she said in an interview. "Those basic principles will have to be actually followed by governments and cities everywhere. There's no shortcut to that," she warned.

Read here (Straits Times, May 18, 2020)

Asymptomatic spread makes testing key for Covid-19 fight

‘In Iceland, where a broad testing effort resulted in 5% of the country’s population getting tested for COVID-19, a lab study suggested that as many as 50% of people who have the disease show no symptoms. A study conducted in Singapore showed that patients with COVID-19 can spread the disease without showing symptoms themselves.

‘Here, Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discusses the challenges of tracing the spread of coronavirus, the importance of testing, and the dangerous appeal of “immunity passports”.’

Read here (Futurity, May 15, 2020)

How has Vietnam, a developing nation in South-East Asia, done so well to combat coronavirus?

Key points: Despite sharing a border with China, Vietnam has reported less than 300 cases. Experts believe that Vietnamese coronavirus caseload statistics are accurate. Success has been attributed to aggressive testing, contact tracing and public messaging

Read here (ABC News, May 13, 2020)

China, Denmark and Singapore expand testing

‘China, Singapore and Denmark were among countries to announce substantial expansions of their testing regimes, with the Chinese city of Wuhan, the original centre of the pandemic, saying it planned to test all 11 million residents...

‘Singapore also said it aimed to test all 323,000 migrant workers living in cramped, often unsanitary dormitories that have become a hotbed of infections in recent weeks, accounting for the vast majority of the city-state’s total of 24,671 cases.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 12, 2020)

US FDA grants an EUA for the first CRISPR-based diagnostic test

‘The US FDA granted an EUA for the first CRISPR-based diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2. CRISPR technologies have been developed for a wide variety of uses, including gene editing and gene drives. The Sherlock CRISPR SARS-CoV-2 test kit works by programming a CRISPR molecule to detect specific parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Once the CRISPR system binds to its target site, a signal is released that can then be detected by researchers running the test. Sherlock stands for “Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing.” With the appropriate, corresponding instrumentation, this test kit could be used at the point of care, and results can be reported within minutes.’

Download here (US FDA, May 6, 2020)

What Covid-19 antibody tests can and cannot tell us

‘Dozens of antibody tests for the novel coronavirus have become available in recent weeks. And early results from studies of such serological assays in the U.S. and around the world have swept headlines. Despite optimism about these tests possibly becoming the key to a return to normal life, experts say the reality is complicated and depends on how results are used.

‘Antibody tests could help scientists understand the extent of COVID-19’s spread in populations. Because of limitations in testing accuracy and a plethora of unknowns about immunity itself, however, they are less informative about an individual’s past exposure or protection against future infection.’

Read here (Scientific American, May 5, 2020)

Inventive routes back to normal life

‘Across the world, countries are embarking on enormous experiments in ending coronavirus lockdown measures - and others are looking on nervously, asking themselves what's the best way back to normality.

‘All these novel schemes, and many more, may help a return to some form of normality. But Ngaire Woods, professor of global economic governance at Oxford University, says easing lockdown requires us all to rethink our lives. "We have got to get testing tracing and isolating up and running fantastically well," she told Radio 4's Briefing Room. "We have to start thinking about preventative measures in public spaces and schools. We have got to manage the import of cases - so think about travel restrictions. That's a clear checklist in order to safely start lifting the lockdown."

‘Prof Woods says thinking will have to go far beyond just re-opening closed-down businesses. We may need to split workforces by age group - an example could be that older teachers must take their classes by video link. "Those are the questions we have to ask - they are not insurmountable problems. The alternative is to stay in a total lockdown."

Read here (BBC, May 4, 2020)

FDA steps up scrutiny of coronavirus antibody tests to ensure accuracy

‘The action was the latest about-face in the administration’s coronavirus response as it seeks to fix a flawed testing response that has been criticized as either too restrictive or too lenient. Earlier this year, the FDA agency was hammered for moving too slowly in allowing academic medical centers and others to develop diagnostic tests for the virus that might have made them more widely available. Then, critics say, it swung too far in the other direction in allowing the antibody tests to go unvetted.

‘The result, they complained, was a flood of products of dubious quality that confused hospitals, doctors and consumers — “a wild, wild West” environment, said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents state and local public laboratories.’

Read here (Washington Post, May 4, 2020)

Roche's serology test with ‘specificity greater than 99.8% and sensitivity of 100%’ gets FDA approval

‘Roche intends to provide tens of millions of tests worldwide by the end of May, and the company is working to expand production capacity. The Roche test requires a blood draw instead of a finger prick. The test takes approximately 18 minutes to run and is fully automated, and the testing system can perform as many as 300 tests per hour.’

Read here (Roche press release, May 3, 2020)

Why are some people testing positive more than once?

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organisation (WHO) says some people are testing positive more than once for coronavirus - but it doesn't mean they have been reinfected.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, she said doctors were finding instances where "dead cells" that emerged during the healing process of the lungs were testing positive for Covid-19, but the individuals themselves were not reinfected.

View here (BBC, May 3, 2020)

Vienna Airport to offer coronavirus tests to avoid quarantine

‘Vienna Airport will offer onsite coronavirus testing from Monday to enable passengers entering Austria to avoid having to be quarantined for 14 days. Passengers arriving at the airport have been required to present a health certificate showing a negative COVID-19 result which is no older than four days, or go into quarantine. From Monday passengers can have a molecular biological (polymerise chain reaction or PCR) COVID-19 test at the airport, and get the result in two to three hours, the airport said.’

Read here (Reuters, May 3, 2020)

Singapore: New safe distancing guidelines, standards for workplaces after Covid-19 circuit breaker

‘When workplace activities gradually resume after the circuit breaker lifts, the Government will need to put in place new guidelines and standards to ensure that they remain safe from potential Covid-19 outbreaks, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said on Friday (May 1).Speaking at a virtual press conference, Mr Wong said these guidelines will build upon existing measures to ensure safe distancing in workplaces for workers in essential services, such as wearing masks at work or not having workers socialise among themselves.

‘These guidelines... will also be complemented by a testing regimen as well as some form of technology that can ensure better tracking and monitoring should a confirmed case emerge in the workplace.’

Read here (Straits Times, May 1, 2020)