Nucleic Acid Testing Overhauled For All Cities

The National Health Commission points out that the new version of the document has been issued to all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps to respond to the joint prevention and control mechanism (leading group and command) of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and has officially started to be implemented.

　

What medical equipment is to be deployed under the new requirements? The document requires that the supply of materials should be ensured in accordance with the principle of "better to be prepared than not to be prepared, not to be used than not to be prepared".

It is recommended to use inactivated sampling tubes, pharyngeal swabs (nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal), testing reagents, medical consumables, protective supplies, extermination supplies, etc.

　　Why was the third edition revised?

　　

On 22 March, the National Health Commission issued the Notice on the Issuance of Regional Guidelines for the Organization and Implementation of Novel Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Testing (Third Edition), which states that:

In order to further guide localities in the prevention and control of the new coronavirus outbreak and to complete the regional nucleic acid testing tasks within the specified time, the Guidelines for the Organization and Implementation of Full Scale Novel Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Testing (Second Edition) have been revised to form the latest document (3rd edition).

　　

It is reported that the first two editions of the Guide have played a good role in guiding localities to carry out large-scale nucleic acid testing, but the recent serious and complex situation of prevention and control of the epidemic faced by China, with the emergence of multiple provinces with simultaneous clusters of outbreaks, or multiple cities in one province with simultaneous outbreaks, coupled with the rapid, highly infectious and insidious spread of the mutant strain of Omicron, has put the organization of nucleic acid The new and higher requirements for the organization of nucleic acid screening have been raised.

　

In order to summarize and promote the useful experience of nucleic acid screening in Zhengzhou, Xi'an and Tianjin and to guide local communities in solving the problems encountered in practice, it is also necessary to revise and form the new version of the Guidelines.

　　

When an epidemic occurs in each region, the scope of nucleic acid testing in risk areas and regions should be scientifically delineated and dynamically adjusted in the first instance.

In principle, one round of regional nucleic acid testing will be conducted daily for the first three days after the outbreak to identify potential risks at the community level; thereafter, the scope and frequency of subsequent screening will be determined based on a comprehensive study of the flow of traceability, the scope of community control and the results of nucleic acid screening.

　　

If the risk at the social level is not controlled and the risk points are unclear, one round of regional nucleic acid testing will continue to be carried out daily.

When the social risk is under control and the risk points are basically mapped out, key areas can be divided according to the distribution of cases in the relevant streets, communities and neighbourhoods, and the key areas will be screened daily, while non-key areas will be screened every other day or once every three days as appropriate, and the test results will be issued within a specified period of time as required.

The scope of nucleic acid screening will be gradually reduced, the accuracy of screening will be improved and scientific and precise screening will be carried out.