David Martin
How do you have laboratory confirmation of a thing that doesn't yet exist? How do you test for a thing if a test doesn't yet exist?
How do you have laboratory confirmation of a thing that doesn't yet exist?
Jan. 2, 2020: 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext#%20
January 7, 2020: Chinese scientists isolated a previously unknown coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the patients, and on January 12 made its genetic sequence available to WHO and international partners.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11421/3
January 12, 2020: Chinese scientists made its genetic sequence available to WHO and international partners.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11421/3
We have 41 patients, on January 2, with laboratory confirmed cases of a thing that wasn't isolated until the following week. How do you have laboratory confirmation of a thing that doesn't yet exist?
Library 4 Humanity Blog Notes:
How do you test for a thing when the test doesn't yet exist?
January 16, 2020: Charité and DZIF announce development of the FIRST diagnostic test for novel coronavirus in China in a joint press release:
Developed by a group of DZIF researchers working under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute of Virology on Campus Charité Mitte, the world’s first diagnostic test for the coronavirus has now been made publicly available. https://www.charite.de/en/service/press_reports/artikel/detail/researchers_develop_first_diagnostic_test_for_novel_coronavirus_in_china/ and https://www.dzif.de/en/researchers-develop-first-diagnostic-test-novel-coronavirus-china
Charité also give a little background on Drosten:
Previous successes recorded by Prof. Drosten and his research groups include the development of novel Zika virus tests and the development of a standard test for the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) pathogen, which is now being used worldwide. A BIH Professor and one the co-discoverers of the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus in 2003, Prof. Drosten was also responsible for developing and making available the first diagnostic test for SARS. The next few years will see members of the DZIF’s ‘Virus detection and preparedness’ group at Charité continue their efforts to increase our preparedness for the emergence of new viruses.
January 17, 2020: WHO publishes interim guidance for laboratory testing of 2019-nCov. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/laboratory-testing-of-2019-novel-coronavirus-(-2019-ncov)-in-suspected-human-cases-interim-guidance-17-january-2020
January 23, 2020: Eurosurveillance publishes Drosten's research, Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR. It was received by Eurosurveillance on Jan. 21 and accepted on Jan. 22, 2020. https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.3.2000045#html_fulltext
January 23, 2020: Drosten's paper reports the genome sequence was uploaded on January 10 and 4 other genome sequences were deposited on January 12, 2020:
A viral genome sequence was released for immediate public health support via the community online resource virological.org on 10 January (Wuhan-Hu-1, GenBank accession number MN908947 [2], followed by four other genomes deposited on 12 January in the viral sequence database curated by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID). The genome sequences suggest presence of a virus closely related to the members of a viral species termed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-related CoV, a species defined by the agent of the 2002/03 outbreak of SARS in humans [3,4]. https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.3.2000045#html_fulltext
Drosten's article goes on to state:
Before public release of virus sequences from cases of 2019-nCoV, we relied on social media reports announcing detection of a SARS-like virus. We thus assumed that a SARS-related CoV is involved in the outbreak. We downloaded all complete and partial (if > 400 nt) SARS-related virus sequences available in GenBank by 1 January 2020. The list (n = 729 entries) was manually checked and artificial sequences (laboratory-derived, synthetic, etc), as well as sequence duplicates were removed, resulting in a final list of 375 sequences. These sequences were aligned and the alignment was used for assay design (Supplementary Figure S1). Upon release of the first 2019-nCoV sequence at virological.org, three assays were selected based on how well they matched to the 2019-nCoV genome (Figure 1). The alignment was complemented by additional sequences released independently on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org), confirming the good matching of selected primers to all sequences. Alignments of primer binding domains with 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV as well as selected bat-associated SARS-related CoV are shown in Figure 2.
So how can you have laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infections on January 2, 2020 when a test didn't yet exist?
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