COVID-19 TESTING

HOW THE COVID-19 TEST IS DONE?

CAN WE DO IT AT HOME?

- blog by The Darwin's Finch

Coronavirus, the word says it's everything. From a local outbreak of 8-10 people in Wuhan to a Global Pandemic in just 2 weeks, it seems like something has beaten up the speed of light to express the power of nature to humanity. But we're not gonna stop, we will fight till the end of it and you'll hear the winning anthem very soon. Doctors, Nurses, all the Health workers have been working days and night despite sleep or dinners, and still who says that we won't' win!

The only way to prevent coronavirus is Social Distancing for the community and Testing for the organizations. Germany, South Korea, Russia has proved that rapid testing among individuals and isolating the infected gradually marks end of the pandemic in their countries.
Of course its easy for them being small countries and tiny populations comparing with India's 135 crore population.

India has fueled up the testing procedure and excelled in isolating the affected to stop the community spread. In this blog, we're gonna learn about how this testing is done and will also get to know about rapid testing at home.

CORONAVIRUS TESTING PROCEDURE 

Coronavirus testing is done mainly in two ways -
I) RT-PCR Method
II) Rapid Testing

Let's start your journey to the world of Immunology in the simplest way -

I) RT-PCR -

RT-PCR stands for Reverse Transcriptase - Polymerase Chain Reaction, a process to identify any specific viral DNA from the sample.
PCR is a technique used to amplify small fragments of DNA, kind of a Xerox Machine that copies the same page again and again and makes a lot of pages of the same kind. PCR can amplify a single fragment of DNA to billion fragments in just 20 mins. Isn't it interesting!

But, the problem stands here.
Coronavirus is an RNA virus, which means it doesn't carry DNA like us. Instead, it carries a single-stranded RNA to transfer its genetic information to its progenies.
In PCR, we can't easily use an RNA strand so we aren't able to perform the test for Covid-19.

Solution : Reverse Transcription is a process by which we can transform this viral RNA into Viral DNA using an enzyme called Reverse Transcriptase (RT).

So yeah, you got it - how the name RT-PCR appeared.

The virus usually infects the upper and lower respiratory tract of a person, so that's where we can collect the sample. To get the sample, we use a cotton stick to rub a little inside your Nose or Throat and its called Swab.  The swab samples are transferred to Labs where RT-PCR is done and within 2-4 hours we get the results. RT-PCR can be done using 10 or more samples at a time that accelerates the process. The whole process costs around 4500 for a single individual.

II) Rapid Test Kit -

As the name suggests, its so rapid that it gives you the result within 10-15 mins of testing. Its a blood test or serological test where it matches the antibody of the specific virus in your blood.

In RT-PCR, we examine if the virus is present in your respiratory tract or not; but in Rapid Testing, we check if antibody* of the virus is present in your body or not. 

*An Antibody is something that is prepared and developed in your body when any pathogen attacks you & makes you sick.

Rapid Test kit is very similar to a Pregnancy kit but the difference is in its working process.
It has three labels - C, G, M that stands for Control, IgG, IgM.
(IgG & IgM are two antibodies that develop in our body in an immune response to any pathogen such as Coronavirus).

S stands for Sample where you've to put your blood sample and the box below that, is for the Buffer that helps the sample to react properly.

When there's no sample in S, no line appears.
A single line will appear on C once you've put the blood sample there for 10-15 mins.
So, after you put your blood sample, you've to wait for 10-15 mins to get the result of this test.

i) If a line appears only on M, that means you're still infectious and you might be sick. You've got infected recently about 7-10 days.

ii) If two lines appear on M & G respectively, that means your infectious period is over or about to over. You might have got the infection about a month ago.

iii) If only a single line appears on G, that means your infection is way old - about 30-45 days before or it also says that you might have got infected multiple times. You are kind of immune to that disease.

This Rapid Testing can be used only a single time for one individual & it costs around 2500 per individual.

Both the tests are around 98% accurate and that's pretty cool.

CAN WE DO THE TEST AT HOME?

Yes, we can test ourselves at home by Rapid Test kit. In US, Amazon & Uber are certified and getting ready to make available the test kits online. India is also planning to start selling these kits online so that people can do the testing at home instead of coming to hospitals of labs.
It will cost around 2500 for a single test kit.

Conclusion:-

More than 250 labs in India are currently working on the testing procedure & both the types of tests are now open to all labs; the only problem is the scarcity of kits.
Hope to see Govt. of  India will manage all these problems and very soon we're gonna test ourselves at home.

STAY HOME STAY SAFE

The Darwin's Finch

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