The greatest shortcomings in Slovakia's fight against the new coronavirus lie in the testing of people for the virus, thinks epidemiologist Alexandra Bražinová of Bratislava-based Comenius University's Medical Faculty. The cardinal task of epidemiologists is to communicate with people who have confirmed COVID-19 illness and secure their quarantine. Furthermore, they must seek and reach out to everyone who was in contact with the infected, which amounts to 20 individuals per one infected on average, and make sure these people are quarantined and tested, too. Based on the epidemiological history (EA), both those who belong to close contacts of confirmed positive cases and some of those calling the infoline are sent to testing. "The problem is not so much in the tests themselves; laboratories would be perfectly capable of testing several times more people than today. What limits us is the process of taking samples," she pointed out.
One of the options is to have a special crew taking samples from people in home quarantine, but this requires biohazard suits that can be used only once. The crew can collect only 30 samples in 24 hours. For the time being, home samples in Bratislava are used only for immobile patients.
Bražinová added that as an epidemiologist, she does not think blanket testing would be efficient "'as there would be a lot of false negative results (people early in the incubation period), and also a lot of "false" positive (people after symptoms, even if we do not know for how a long a person who has recovered from the disease remains infectious). This testing would have to be repeated periodically, and we can't really afford that, even if we had resources like Brunei. Certainly more testing needs to be done, but first the collection issues must be solved."
