Within the framework of Hospital 57357’s social responsibility during the Corona virus pandemic, the Hospital administration anticipated the needs for meeting the increasing number of infected cases during the third wave of the virus. They found it necessary to upgrade analysis and diagnostic devices to meet this increase in numbers and maintain our high performance level.
Since the start of the third wave, the Hospital administration opted to use the donation of one of 57357’s supporters in acquiring the nucleic acid extraction device. The device contributes to the rapid detection of the virus through the PCR test, which enables rapid start of treatment.
About the device, Dr. Reem Hassan, assistant professor of clinical pathology and head of viruses unit, explains: the third wave of COVID-19 virus resulted in a big increase in patients numbers, which required rapid PCR test results.
With the new device, we carry out the first stage of PCR test, which is extracting the virus’s DNA. The new device enables extracting the DNA of 96 samples at the same time, while the capacity of the old device was 16 to 32 samples. This means the new device is able to analyze three times the number of samples. The test timing does not exceed 6 hours from taking samples up to obtaining the test results, which enables quick diagnosis and accordingly quick start of treatment and improving recovery rate.
The device is not restricted to detecting the COVID-19 virus, it can detect other viruses as well such as hepatitis B & C, HIV, CMV and EBV viruses. These other tests are performed for the Hospital’s children routinely, as the child who is infected with any of these viruses would be needing a different treatment protocol.
Among the advantages of the device is that it works without human intervention which reduces effort and mistakes to the minimum.