Reasons For China’s Unreliable Death And Infected Statistics Finally Revealed-Insufficient Test Kits, Also Cambodia Reports First Case
Source: Thailand Medical News Jan 27, 2020 4 years, 10 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 15 hours, 46 minutes ago
Officials from
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has finally revealed that the reason for the sometimes ‘ambiguous’ and also unreliable data was due to the fact that all the hospitals in the area and also elsewhere in
Hubei and all over
China does not have enough
test kits for the
2019-nCoV virus. Initially there were only two companies in China that were licensed to produce these
test kits that could detect the new
coronavirus strain but they could not fulfill the orders plus there were some discrepancies and also spoilages in some of the delivery stocks. Furthermore government officials in Beijing were not aware in the initial stages that the spread of the
virus would be on such a massive scale and had contracted in early January these two firms to only produce 50,000
test kits which were not even fulfilled in full by both these companies as of now.
The China Coronavirus Test Kits
Wuhan city alone had only received 6,000 such test kits since the 22 of January and were told that another 30,000
test kits would arrive but these have yet to materialize. Doctors were then ordered to only administer the test to those who were only showing severe conditions of the disease. Also in cases of deaths that occurred, if a test was not done prior to the patient dying to confirm that they had the
virus, they were officially asked to list the cause of death as due to other reasons such as organ failure, kidney failure or cardiac failure etc. In addition for those that were exhibiting symptoms but had no test yet, they were to be classed as being under observations according to the officials who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear. The same protocols had been adhered to all over
China apparently, hence accounting for low death rates and infected rates due to the
coronavirus.
The same officials also said that they were promised on the 22
nd of January ten biosafety labs that could handle the diagnostics of 2000 samples per day by state officials in Beijing but to date that has never materialized.
Thailand Medical news ground staff in Beijing, Shenzhen and Chongqing confirmed that almost all hospitals in these provinces did not have even have the
test kits available.
Considering that there were almost 7 million individuals who have gone to various hospitals all over the country in the last 10 days to check themselves as they had symptoms or suspected that they could be having symptoms and there were insufficient
test kits or no
test kits in most cases,the scenario seems frightening indeed and is a cause of concern to the internation
al community.
The same officials from
Wuhan defended the “higher authorities" protocol of reporting as they only reported on deaths and infections of those that had been tested whereas they argued that some deaths without the test cannot be attributed just yet to the
coronavirus as it could have been due to common flu, normal pneumonia or something else!
It must also be noted that off the 32,000 plus patients that are currently being classed as being under observations just in Hubei alone, none of them have yet to be tested for the
virus.
Meanwhile only yesterday, two Shanghai companies have obtained licenses to produce
2019-nCoV nucleic acid
test detection kits, which can quickly detect for infection of the novel
coronavirus.
Shanghai ZJ Bio-Tech Co and Shanghai GeneoDx Biotech Co will now join the earlier two companies to be the only four companies in
China approved by drug authorities to manufacture the kits in an emergency response to the
virus outbreak.
The National Medical Products Administration said that they have initiated emergency examination and approval procedures on medical equipment and instruments to combat the outbreak and two companies have had their registration checked and samples tested for quality and standards.
Cambodia Reports First Case Of New Coronavirus
On another note, the first case of an individual being infected with the new
coronavirus strain from
China has been identified in
Cambodia. The case was confirmed by the country’s Health Minister, Mam Bunheng on Monday at 5pm Bangkok time.
The patient is a Chinese national in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, he said.
