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https://www.nationthailand.com/life/40013617
Leading virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan said that a blood test can detect Covid-19 infection even in people who have no symptoms from the disease.
Covid-19 infections behave like a pyramid, Yong said in a Facebook post on Monday. At the base of the pyramid are the 90 per cent or more of patients who have no or mild symptoms, especially with the Omicron variant.
However, at the top of the pyramid with severe symptoms are the elderly and people with underlying health conditions.
Yong cited a study of 80 children aged 5 to 11 who were not in a risk group and had never shown signs of infection. The study, conducted by the Yong-led Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology, tested the children’s blood and found that five of them had been infected but remained asymptomatic as they developed natural immunity to the Covid virus spike protein. Such immunity cannot be produced by vaccines.
The children belong to a segment of the Thai population that remain asymptomatic and have to take blood tests to know they have been infected with Covid-19.
Thus blood tests would be the only way to find out how many people in Thailand have been infected with the virus and developed natural immunity.
However, natural immunity to the spike protein or nucleocapsid does not last long. The bodies’ immune response drops to 25 per cent one year after infection.
Yong said blood tests to detect natural immunity to the spike protein could be used in parallel with people’s vaccination history.
He added that Thailand should use blood tests to calculate what percentage of the population have been infected.
Published : March 21, 2022
By : THE NATION
Dr Bushra Jamil, Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Aga Khan University Hospital and President, Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan (MMIDSP)
Rohit Sahgal, Director, The Voices Project; Technical Advisor to WHO’s Western Pacific Region for NCD and Cervical Cancer Prevention & Control and Prof Yang Pei-Ming, Professor Emeritus of Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine and Chief Executive Officer, Liver Disease Prevention & Treatment Research Foundation
Lance Little, Managing Director, Region Asia Pacific of Roche Diagnostics
Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Director, Preventive Oncology, Karkinos Healthcare, India and Senior Visiting Scientist, International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO-IARC).
However, he explained that tests are also missed due to a fear of positive results. Some 41 per cent and 38 per cent of the public missed an HIV or hepatitis test, respectively, due to fear of positive results.
Meanwhile, roughly 60 per cent of the public believe that there is some sort of barrier to testing while 50 per cent of HCPs believe that the public lacks adequate information. He gave an example that one of the barriers in Japan was a busy lifestyle.
He said many barriers were broken during the Covid-19 pandemic because of the need to move quickly, which allowed the healthcare industry to experiment.
He gave as an example the need for people to show their vaccination status or test result before entering many buildings. This model empowers individuals with access to their own healthcare data – something that hasn’t been done before Covid-19. This could be the first step in making healthcare data more accessible. To reshape the healthcare system, having the relevant information at the right time and the right place is critical.
He added that digital tools play an important role in that but there is a danger. He explained that digitalisation needs to be looked at for its appropriateness. According to available data, healthcare information doubles every 72 days so it is impossible to stay up to date.
Digital tools could be very useful. In general, digital tools need to integrate with the healthcare system, while the healthcare system needs to support variability.
Answering a question on what different countries’ healthcare systems should be mindful of when pushing for diagnostics, he said it is about the appropriate use of diagnostic tests. Every country needs to decide for itself where its healthcare system is and what is most useful at that time so as to harness the power of diagnostics to improve lives.
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