Meet the Thai 'virus hunters' working 24/7 to fight coronavirus

 

 

In the fight to stop Coronavirus, a dedicated team of scientists are working around the clock in a Bangkok lab.

 

So far 25 cases have been detected in Thailand with nine people being discharged from hospital.

 

Sky's South East Asia Correspondent Siobhan Robbins has been speaking to the team nicknamed the 'virus hunters' and sent this report from Bangkok.

 

 

Aka ghost busters

When will the cure be announced? 

Nice to meet you

7 minutes ago, Pravda said:

When will the cure be announced? 

Never ..

 

There is none against SARS,
there is none against a simple hay fever,
there is none against the flu,
and there won't be any against coronavirus;

all this is free publicity made by the government to prevent people from panicking

I suppose some people will be impressed, but really, it's a testing facility not a research center and is no different than the typical hospital facility that tests samples for HIV, hepatitis etc. The laboratory is following  level 2 safety procedures. If it was handling investigative research it would be at level 3  requiring a sealed room with pressurized entries, and the workers would  be wearing face shields with respirators. SARS, MERS require level 3 facilities. 

 

I note the reference of the reduction in test result timeline. Thailand  is using a PCR and sequencing protocol for detecting and identifying 2019-nCoV. It's nothing original.

Novacyt recently introduced its  test that the US FDA approved.  

https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/primerdesign-molecular-test-coronavirus/

 The US CDC also shared its own test with everyone.

 

As part of the worldwide initiative, Thailand developed its protocols for testing, and in fairness to  the  researchers at the Thai  Ministry of Public Health, they should be acknowledged.

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/conventional-rt-pcr-followed-by-sequencing-for-detection-of-ncov-rirl-nat-inst-health-t.pdf

 

My long winded point is that much of the progress and  innovation we are seeing is due to the USA, EU and to a lesser extent Canada, Japanese and Australian public health facilities and it would be nice if just once this was noted in these "good news" promotional reports.

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

My long winded point is that much of the progress and  innovation we are seeing is due to the USA, EU and to a lesser extent Canada, Japanese and Australian public health facilities and it would be nice if just once this was noted in these "good news" promotional reports.

No mention of the UK where the biggest advance, so far, has been made?

The video is fair. Thailand has quite good genome research capability largely for agriculture but also medicine. At the beginning they started using full genome sequencing (3 days) and now are using PCR (3 hours). This is what all countries must do before PCR codes or purchasable kits are available. It also sounds like they developed their own PCR codes (better way) and submitted them to WHO rather than downloading common codes. 

 

The problem is with someone else who has 100% control.

That is the the Chula lab that was in CNN's photo. The other WHO reference lab is at National Institute of Health (Controlled by the Ministry of Public Health) and two labs must confirm any diagnosis. They were apparantly churning out 5-10 results per day. This seems to be the maximum capability of Thailand's diagnosis system. 66 million people and they were swamped by a few dozen. 

 

Here's the protocol they use in case interested, it also requires materials the supply of which is unknown: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/conventional-rt-pcr-followed-by-sequencing-for-detection-of-ncov-rirl-nat-inst-health-t.pdf?sfvrsn=42271c6d_4

Quote

Materials & Methods 1.1 Macherey-Nagel Nucleospin RNA virus (Cat. No 740956) 1.2 Invitrogen superscriptTM III Platinum One-Step Quantitative (Cat No. 11732-020 or 11732-088)

 

EDIT: There's also a mention of more than 1500 samples having been tested. The backlog only went to 405 until MoPH stopped publishing the numbers. Doesn't match, they are playing with the stats. Also, it does point out the NIH lab as the bottleneck as they too have to confirm. Not hard to guess what is going on.

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by DrTuner

6 hours ago, Assurancetourix said:

Never ..

 

There is none against SARS,
there is none against a simple hay fever,
there is none against the flu,
and there won't be any against coronavirus;

all this is free publicity made by the government to prevent people from panicking

A vaccine for SARS is currently going through trials.

There is already a 'hay fever' shot.

There is a vaccine for 'flu (flu jab) although the vaccine has to be modified twice a year due to the mutating 'flu virus.  It gives around 60% protection.

No reason why a WuFlu jab won't be developed but could take years.

 

6 hours ago, rabas said:

The video is fair. Thailand has quite good genome research capability largely for agriculture but also medicine. At the beginning they started using full genome sequencing (3 days) and now are using PCR (3 hours). This is what all countries must do before PCR codes or purchasable kits are available. It also sounds like they developed their own PCR codes (better way) and submitted them to WHO rather than downloading common codes. 

 

The problem is with someone else who has 100% control.

Since when they was able to change?

8 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

I suppose some people will be impressed, but really, it's a testing facility not a research center and is no different than the typical hospital facility that tests samples for HIV, hepatitis etc. The laboratory is following  level 2 safety procedures. If it was handling investigative research it would be at level 3  requiring a sealed room with pressurized entries, and the workers would  be wearing face shields with respirators. SARS, MERS require level 3 facilities. 

WHO requires BSL 3 if doing viral cultures, BSL 2 if "Agent", which I suppose this diagnosing is about: https://www.who.int/publications-detail/disease-commodity-package---novel-coronavirus-(ncov)

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by DrTuner

16 hours ago, HHTel said:

There is a vaccine for 'flu

Provided you get vaccinated BEFORE being sick otherwise it is useless at all.

In France, every year there is a PREVENTIVE vaccination campaign before the start of winter;
this vaccination is free for people over the age of 60 or 65 but paying for all other people ...

In any case, it was like that 15 years ago before I left this country definitively.
It may have changed and certainly not for the better ...