[News Page-Taihai Net]
According to Taiwan media reports, the number of confirmed cases in Taiwan has exceeded 5,000 in a single day, and it is hard to find a dose of rapid screening reagents for home use. It is reported that a pharmacy in Tainan City sells rapid screening reagents and tells consumers to "go home A drop of blood can be used for testing.” Consumers felt something was wrong after buying it back, and checked the information on the Internet, only to find that it was not a household rapid test at all, but a serum test reagent used by hospitals, and they were deceived.
A citizen in , Tainan recently wanted to buy a rapid screening test, but he couldn’t find it in many pharmacies. Later, he found that a pharmacy on Datong Road in the southern district had a rapid screening test kit. Household rapid screening is packaged one by one, but subpackaged from the whole batch, which feels weird, but the staff of the pharmacy said, "It's just a quick screening reagent, but this is a whole batch", and emphasized that "there is' The Ministry of Health and Welfare's "approved brand name" requires consumers to go home and drop blood on it to test, and each sells for 350 yuan (NT dollars, the same below). He bought a copy, and there is no instruction for use, and he also asked the pharmacy request.
But when I went home and checked carefully, I found that the instructions stated that plasma or serum after centrifugation should be taken for testing, and "need to be operated by professionals", not a household type, and the product name is "XX New Coronavirus Antibody Rapid Test "Reagent" is not an antigen reagent, so I posted a post on the forum to remind everyone to pay attention, "Don't be stupid to buy a quick screening agent that is not a household type at all."
It is understood that the pharmacy is "well-known" in the industry. It was sent away by the city government two years ago for allegedly driving up and hoarding masks. At that time, the video was secretly recorded by the media. The pharmacy said to customers, "No one else has masks. Only I have it", and was accused of selling a mask to the outside world for a high price of 15 yuan, and was criticized and made a fortune.
The pharmacy operator in Tainan City said that at present, except for some large-scale chain channels and home-use quick screening, general pharmacies have long been sold out. In terms of price, when it was first launched last year, it sold for 350 yuan a piece, but this year it has dropped to 300 to 300 yuan. 320 yuan, the manufacturer has announced that the retail price will be reduced to 200 yuan next week because of the subsidy.
Fei Weiling, chief of the Food and Drug Administration Section of the Health Bureau, said that the inspectors went to the pharmacy to inspect the pharmacy based on the information on the Internet forum. They did not find any of the rapid screening reagents referred to by netizens, nor did they find that the seller had sold them. Since the reagents named on the Internet are approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare for use in medical institutions, and can also be sold in pharmacies, the industry has no obvious violations, and can only verbally warn that "it cannot be used as a household reagent for consumption. By".
Immunology experts from Cheng Kung University Hospital in Taiwan said in private that there are currently three ways to detect the new crown pneumonia virus, namely PCR nucleic acid, antigen, and antibody. It is a test for IgM and IgG antibodies of the new coronavirus, which can detect whether you have been infected with new coronary pneumonia, and judge how long you have been infected with new coronary pneumonia from the type of antibody produced. The advantages are high accuracy and low false positives, but the disadvantage is that in the middle and late stages of infection, to be detected. For reagents that use serum or plasma for testing, if whole blood is used, the blood cells in it may interfere with the test, resulting in inaccurate results. (Source: Straits Guide)
