THOUGHTS ON FIGHTING-OFF COVID-19

Sir,

As of March 31, 2020, at least 38 854 people had died from COVID-19 and 799 857 had been infected globally, as such, in this war against this virus, screening, diagnosing and monitoring therapy of coronavirus make a core strategic defence and attack in COVID-19 Healthcare Battlefront, hence it’s not correct to outsource services of screening and diagnosis of COVID-19.

As medical laboratory scientists (MLS) in Eswatini, first and foremost, we thank the King for ordering his government to suspend all non-essential services while it continues to plan, implement and build the systems to address a strategic defence and attack with minimal errors. Secondly, we want to express our interest to join the COVID-19 screening, diagnosing and therapy monitoring (CSDT) Battlefront.

Observed

The CSDT Battlefront prospective warriors have observed, with great concern, that on March 23, 2020, according to the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), a public health research organisation, with its headquarters in Washington DC and New Delhi, it was indicated that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide by then exceeded 350 000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. However, it took over three months to reach the first 100 000 confirmed cases and, thereafter, it took only 12 days to reach the next 100 000.

Imported

In South Africa, few imported transmissions have caused numerous local transmissions within days.
Here in Eswatini, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to be imported most likely from KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng and will continue to spread rapidly this coming winter.

Every step of the response needs to prioritise actions most likely to prevent new infections, prevent infected people from dying and reduce causing economical, psychological and social harms.

One potential identified deadly error Eswatini could make in its response is to continue over-depending on outsourced laboratory services on COVID-19. This is going to cost us not only time and data needed to prioritise correct preventive counter measures but also the effectiveness and efficiency of our healthcare staff, pharmacists, nurses and doctors to take a lot more time and strain to the breaking point.

Guarantee

Getting tested today is no guarantee you won’t get infected tomorrow, so one-time outsourced testing should not give us a false sense of security. Besides, emerging data suggests that testing of throat swabs may miss as many as two-thirds of infections.
In view of that, prolonged lockdown is a must to stop new cases from emerging.

Above all, we need to set up a level 4 biosafety COVID-19 laboratory to promote internal testing. The Eswatini COVID-19 laboratory can open 24/7 to inform containment, isolation strategies and facilitate contact tracing.
This laboratory can also inform treatment and protection of vulnerable groups - to know when it is safe to discharge patients or to identify participants in clinical trials.

Investigations

According to epidemiological investigations, this laboratory will provide data to determine how widespread infection is, facilitate surveillance, and inform situational analysis, projections, and investigations, including how the virus and how many of viral strains are spreading at a moment in time, and how infectious asymptomatic people are.
With such kind of data, the nation will be able to understand the direction where the virus is spreading, to whom, and what the trend could be in the coming weeks and months.

So, we, the MLS, are more than willing to provide screening, diagnostics and therapy monitoring tests in order to reduce prolonged and unprotected close contact with suspects.
Join us on WhatsApp group: 7640 1669/7918 9812 - FIGHTING OFF COVID-19

Medical laboratory scientists

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