Six U.S. public health laboratories plan to begin monitoring new coronaviruses in the general population this week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] says the risk to the virus remains low for the general population. However, activating the disease surveillance network will enable the CDC and other public health officials to detect any undetected virus that is circulating in the country.
"This is important because all efforts now focus on people who have a direct connection with China or a laboratory-confirmed case. Edward Belungi, director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health at the Marshfield Clinic Institute Edward Belongia said: "There is currently no low-level propagation system that can detect radar signals. "
Six laboratories–located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and New York City–have become part of the national influenza surveillance network, and they regularly monitor all types of viruses. In the laboratory, samples from patients were tested for multiple pathogens, giving people a comprehensive understanding of the various diseases spread throughout the community.
Surveillance has not started, partly Problems due to new coronavirus test Developed by CDC. The test will be used for surveillance aimed at diagnosing people with symptoms of the disease caused by the COVID-19 virus. It was distributed to public health laboratories across the country last week, but most laboratories are having trouble running it. The CDC said that this usually happened during the launch of a new test, but did not say what caused the error.
Peter Schulte said that once the test was up and running, existing systems were able to begin scanning for new coronaviruses. Shult is the director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, one of three national flu reference centers in the United States. "The whole concept of having something new and being able to take advantage of existing infrastructure is what we did for the 2009 H1N1 pandemic." "We now have more capabilities and more to handle novel events experience."
Efforts to track viruses spreading across the United States have focused on the flu. Hundreds of thousands of public health laboratories test patients' respiratory tract samples throughout the year to see if they have the flu, and if so, which flu virus is causing it. After preliminary analysis, some samples are also sent to one of the National Influenza Reference Centers or directly to the CDC so that more detailed information about them can be collected, such as the genetic sequence of the virus.
Clinical laboratories in hospitals and other healthcare centers focus on diagnosing patients and also report data to the CDC. "All of this has a very broad understanding of influenza activity.
Another surveillance system, called the National Respiratory and Enterovirus Surveillance System [NREVSS], overlaps with influenza surveillance programs. In many public health laboratories, a series of viral tests are then performed on all tested influenza samples, including rotavirus [causing diarrhea] and several viruses that cause colds. However, the type and number of viruses screened varies from state to state.
Surveillance of new coronaviruses will make use of all these existing methods and platforms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public health laboratories will be required to test any samples for influenza-negative screening of the new coronavirus.
"My point is that this is a way to quickly get up in the lab and really drop a vast network," Schulte said.
However, the laboratory may not test each sample individually. Schulte said he hopes they will be told to mix multiple samples together to increase efficiency. The lab did this because the samples were not tested to diagnose individual patients; they just wanted to see if the virus actually appeared in the population. Batch testing is common in disease surveillance, such as in HIV surveillance.
Schulte said that conducting a new coronavirus test at the Wisconsin State Hygiene Laboratory was not particularly burdensome. He said that although in smaller laboratories, fewer resources could be more difficult. "They both have the ability to do this, but may not have the ability."
Once laboratories can test and new surveillance for coronaviruses is strengthened, the CDC will refine its methods. "As we learn more and if we start detecting viruses, we can make it a more effective and cost-effective surveillance system. Or, if we do nothing but test, it may mean there is nothing there Or we just didn't test in the right area, "Shult said. "This is something we must work hard to resolve in the coming months."