CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, Jul 7 (ACN) The new fully Cuban Umelisa SARS-COV-2 diagnostic system will be used in the province of Cienfuegos to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez recently highlighted on Twitter the development and national production of this antigen, which will be incorporated into to the Cuban health protocols.
Designed by Cuba’s Immunoassay Center and validated by the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine, this product will make it possible to detect in just four hours the presence of the virus in asymptomatic suspected patients.
Dr. Ling Denisse Santeiro Pérez, director of the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology (CPHEM) in Cienfuegos, told ACN that specialists from the Tecnosuma International company are preparing the equipment to assimilate the new process and respond to the changes in the COVID-19 diagnostic algorithms.
“Its 100% Cuban technological package reduces the cost of these procedures, made possible through the country’s 230-plus laboratories using the Ultra Micro Analytical System (SUMA) technology,” she remarked.
The antigen will be applied to various groups under study, including contacts, suspects, and confirmed cases, as well as to inbound travelers in ports of entry to the province. The procedure will make it possible to rule out cases as negative without the need to apply the more expensive PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test.
Santeiro Perez said that those who test positive will be subject to another PCR study in the six-months-old Molecular Biology laboratory of the province, where over 16,000 PCR tests per month are carried out—500 to 600 per day.
The exact date to start using the Cuban antigen in the province is yet to be announced, but it will undoubtedly speed up the process of study of the samples and cut down on the expenses imposed by the pandemic since its onset 16 months ago.