More than 300 samples of nasopharyngeal exudates have already been processed at the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology (CPHEM), in order to diagnose the presence or not of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which has become a global pandemic.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- The exams are sent daily to the Virology and Molecular Biology Laboratory in Santiago de Cuba, through the use of a vehicle from the Cubataxi agency and the participation of a specialist in Microbiology, who is in charge of the safe transfer, thanks to the fulfillment of the control measures guided by the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap).

“Technicians and microbiologists from our institution carry out the tests in hospitals and isolation centers. The information is recorded in a statistics book and when the data of each patient is confirmed, we proceed to triple packaging, a technique established for the collection of exams, together with adequate refrigeration for handling shipments of high biological risk, "explained the Dr. Zunilda Leticia Bello Fernández, Second Degree Specialist in Microbiology, Master in Infectious Diseases and Principal Specialist of the CPHEM laboratories.

When they arrive at the Heroic City laboratory, a group of 15 professionals use indispensable means and resources for molecular diagnosis using the real-time polymerase chain reaction technique (PCR-RT).
Its task is to confirm the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid in samples of respiratory secretions, based on epidemiological and clinical criteria, already defined internationally.

The use of the Roche (major pharmaceutical company) platform to carry out the analyzes ensures fast and very reliable results, being a technology similar to that of the First World; which also makes it possible to adopt epidemiological control actions in each territory where positive cases are confirmed for COVID-19, a highly contagious disease that is very easy to spread.