Osung, Oct 20 (BUS): In the event of an unknown virus outbreak, rapid diagnosis of the virus is an essential step for health authorities to control the disease from the initial stage.
The novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, and then quickly spread around the world and resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic. Early on, South Korea was hailed as one of the leading countries that immediately brought the virus under control, Yonhap reported.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said it was fortunate to check the diagnostic testing capabilities of infectious diseases and be fully prepared for the system just before the first outbreak and then face the unprecedented epidemic that has lasted nearly three years.
“We’ve had a public health crisis from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the past and have learned the importance of diagnosing the virus,” Yu Chun-kun, director of the KDCA’s Office of Infectious Disease Diagnostic Control, told reporters. Tuesday. “So we ran a beta test to get our diagnostic program ready for any potential flu or coronavirus in late 2019.”
The phantom disaster exercise was conducted on December 17, 2019. It aimed to review the KDCA emergency response procedures and procedures, especially the disease diagnosis scheme, against a possible influx of an unknown virus from China.
About two weeks later, China reported its first case of coronavirus, and KDCA employed a task force to diagnose the highly contagious virus in advance as it had been practicing in pilot testing.
The task force played a critical role in virus detection and diagnosis when South Korea reported its first COVID-19 patient on January 20, 2020.
“It takes time to set up programs to detect a specific virus, but we have diagnostics for all post-workout coronaviruses when COVID-19 started to spread,” said Kim Eun-jin from the Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases. “I succeeded from the start.”
KDCA has unveiled its high-security laboratory that performs exotic disease diagnosis, certification and gene sequencing.
The lab tested the country’s first COVID-19 infection about three years ago, when the country wasn’t ready to roll out a nationwide virus testing system.
Currently, regular virus tests are performed at public health centers or local hospitals, while the KDCA lab focuses on detailed classification and surveillance by sequencing genes and observing the characteristics of variants.
In the lab, researchers extract DNA from a sample of an infected person and add drops of the reagent to the extract. They put the mixture of DNA and the reagent into a machine that sequences the genes.
KDCA said it has seven gene-sequencing machines, the largest in the country, and one of the largest pieces of equipment can process 400 samples at a time.
She noted that the laboratory is the only place in Korea to check and confirm variants and mutations of COVID-19.
“As new variables continue to emerge, it is important for us to review the results from here and come up with effective measures to quickly adapt to the new virus,” Kim said. “This lab has acted as a sentinel analyzing the coronavirus and detecting the future virus since the outbreak.”
Since the first COVID-19 case was reported in South Korea, 25.2 million people have contracted the virus as of Thursday, and nearly 29,000 people have died.
In 2020, as part of the Seoul government’s strategy for a better country response to a public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the KDCA was upgraded to an independent management organization from the Center for Disease Control of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
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