Countries rush to build diagnostic capacity as coronavirus spreads
As of Sunday, the World Health Organization expected every nation in Africa to be able to diagnose the disease.
As of early Monday, there had been 40,235 confirmed cases reported in China and 909 deaths, as well as 319 cases in 24 other countries, including one death. WHO has activated a network of 15 referral laboratories that can support national efforts in confirming new cases, and has identified 168 labs globally with the technology to diagnose the virus.
China appears to have adequate stock of the materials needed to perform diagnostic tests, but there is a limited number of trained technicians who can run them. “The workload on those labs is extreme,” Ryan said. GenScript, which has offices in New Jersey and Nanjing, China, has developed a test available to researchers. It cannot be used as a diagnostic until it has been tested in hundreds of virus samples.
Utah-based Co-Diagnostics on Monday said it has started shipping its test, which is available for research purposes, to clients. Chief Scientific Officer Brent Satterfield said last week that the company has been struggling to find clinical virus samples to validate the test for use as a diagnostic.
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