(DN)- On February 4, the Provincial Center for Disease Control received handover of the Cobas 4800 system from the Sonadezi Industrial Park Development Corporation to facilitate local Covid-19 testing. The system is worth VND 5 billion.
Leaders of the Department of Health and the Provincial Center for Disease Control presented thank-you flowers to Sonadezi’s Board of Management
According to the Director of the Provincial Center for Disease Control Bach Thai Binh, Dong Nai currently has 3 units licensed by the Ministry of Health to perform SARS-CoV-2 testing but their system does not provide a full scale of functionalities, resulting in low daily testing capacity that fails to meet the requirements during large-scale outbreaks.
The Cobass 4800 system manufactured by Roche Diagnostics International Ltd (Switzerland) in 2020, as donated by Sonadezi, is now one of the most advanced PCR systems on the market, with complete and fully automated functionalities. It can handle up to 2,000 samples/24 hours, which is 3-4 times higher than the current system installed at the Provincial Center for Disease Control, thus making it possible to analyze more than 3,000 samples/day at 3 local testing centers. For group testing, up to 10,000 samples/day can be handled. This new system also helps reduce human resources and testing workers’ exposure to the virus.
The testing system has been installed at the Testing Division of the Provincial Center for Disease Control to serve testing from February 4.
The system consists of two main components: automated extraction and real-time analysis. The system comes with necessary apps and a number of support equipment such as personal computers, printers, UPSs, chemicals and consumables. The system is CE-IVD certified in line with European Union standards and the tests on the Cobass 4800 system all meet requirements of the United States (FDA) and the European standards.
Using external biological products for SARS-CoV-2 testing, the system also measures viral load of HIV and hepatitis B/hepatitis C, determines HPV genotypes (which causes cervical cancer), performs predictive genetic testing and tests for other pathogens causing dangerous infectious diseases such as influenza, Zika, SARS, etc.