Advancement in antiviral testing has helped people across the country.
Diseases caused by viral infections are quite common. Some of them, which include common cold, nasal infection, are common, and every person in the world may have suffered from these infections. As the name suggests, this is primarily caused by Viruses. And an interesting fact about viruses is that they always try to mutate themselves to survive like other organisms. Due to this, there are many serious infectious diseases, and a highly contagious pandemic is being suffered. We have observed sphere-changing shifts in population from ancient times due to pandemics, and the recent coronavirus pandemic and European rat flu are examples that have caused immense loss to mankind. Because of its contagiousness, it is required to identify the pathogen that carries viruses.
The best way is to detect the viral infection to restrain the spread of these infections. Because of the recent coronavirus pandemic, the advancement of antiviral test played an important role in detecting this infection, with the advancement of testing, advanced equipment and laboratories, which cost is higher, which a major drawback in the process of advancement.
It is very challenging to provide testing at a budget-friendly costing. Different methods are performed today, including enzyme immunoassay, Antigen test, reverse transcript test, etc. are way different from the traditional method used earlier. Advancement is necessary and must to prevent another pandemic. Some important questions regarding antiviral testing are being answered.
1. What are the parameters for a good laboratory test?
To treat a disease, one should know the reason behind the infection. At the same time, testing accuracy and efficiency play an important role in deriving treatment factors. The ideal test would probably be 100% accurate, but it is not possible because of some factors. This factor depends on various reasons like using different methods for testing, human error, testing kit error. But if the test results are more than 90% accurate, then it is considered a good laboratory testing procedure. Not only accuracy, but testing must also be cost-efficient, user-friendly and robust. When a patient is infected, test reports show the percentage of infection this is generally known as sensitivity. This is another factor for determining the accuracy of the testing.
2. What are the traditional methods for testing?
The traditional method of test is time-consuming, and a small number of samples can be tested. In countries like Germany, the United States of America, Britain etc., Electron microscopes are used to test viral infections. Samples used for testing vary from fluids to stool, depending upon testing procedures.AS we discussed earlier, the virus always mutes itself to survive, due to which some traditional methods are not that efficient.
For testing of coronavirus, the traditional method was antigen test was used, but later it was found to be inefficient. In the case of influenza, the antibodies present in the serum, the agglutination process is prevented.
3. What are the advanced methods of Antiviral Testing?
All the advancement of diagnosing is based on the different principles used and on SWVT analysis (Strength, Weakness, variant, threats). Our body produces antibodies to prevent infection in the body; it is a natural and biological process. A new immunoassay test is based on this technique. The main principle of this test is in the formation of an Immunocomplex between antibody present in the sample of the patient and antigen present in the reagent or vice versa, which is then generated by the patient body.
Another method is the PCR technique, also known as a polymerase chain reaction. One technique of testing based on this is RTPCR which is used for testing of novel coronavirus of a different variant. For Hepatitis B, PCR is considered the standard method for testing the DNA level with high accuracy. Fewer countries remain which don’t have access to such advanced testing facilities, so the WHO is making sure proper volunteers are allotted to take care of the healthcare infrastructure and make proper reports of the situation there.
4. What are the advantages and limitations of Advancement?
The advantages of these advanced methods are as follows,
a. The methods are higher in accuracy and are more sensitive than traditional methods. As it is based on assay methods.
b. This testing procedure is technology-based, so it reduces the number of operators and workload.
c. It can detect some rare drug patterns.
d. It is less time-consuming, and the cost of testing is not that high.
e. Risk of contamination is quite less, which will stop spreading during an experiment.
Some limitations of this advanced testing are as follows:
a. As it is advance, it is required to have advanced genome sequencing skills and have expertise in data analysis.
b. Other than developed countries, it is a challenging job to establish in underdeveloped countries.
c. As it is new technology-oriented, it is high cost; as a result, most of the population cannot afford it.
d. PCR is not completely useful for highly mutated viruses. And this can see on the delta variant of the coronavirus where the RT-PCR (Reverse transcription Polymerase chain reaction) test cannot detect the infection.
Conclusion of the topic
The world is moving ahead, so is the health infrastructure. Because of various unknown mutations of microorganisms, it is necessary to detect the mutation to stop the spread of the microorganism. The priority should be for the enhancement and advancement of the testing procedure. Antiviral test procedures are getting enhanced. Due to its cost, researchers are going on to make this cost-efficient so that underdeveloped countries could afford this. Although WHO (World health organization) continuously makes serious efforts to strengthen the strategies to control pandemics.
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