The World Health Organization on Friday called on world governments to return to the basics of public health surveillance in order to bring the coronavirus outbreak under control. According to Reuters, the W.H.O. issued the call for more surveillance to many countries, including the United States, Switzerland, Mexico and Germany. Many of the countries the agency has addressed have turned their pandemic efforts away containment and toward restarting economies that have been devastated by global shutdowns.
"We need to go back to where we should have been months ago--finding cases, tracking cases, isolating people who tested positive, doing quarantine for contacts," Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the W.H.O.'s health emergencies program stated during the agency's Friday coronavirus press briefing in Geneva.
"Through solidarity we will win the fight and nobody is safe until everybody is safe," Ryan added. "There is a path out, but we must remain ever-vigilant, and we may have to have significant alteration of our lifestyles until we get to a point where we have an effective vaccine."
Total Global Cases: Over 3.9 Million
Total Deaths: Over 280,000
Total Recovered: Over 1.3 Million
Testing and Potential Defenses
According to researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in a report published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Abbott Laboratories' (NYSE: ABT) antibody test for COVID-19 had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, meaning that the tests are highly accurate and will not produce false negatives. Antibody testing has become crucial in understanding the virus as it shows how far the outbreak has extended in a population and who is possibly immune from further infection.
The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) granted Emergency Use Authorization to its first at-home saliva coronavirus test kit on Friday. The kit was developed by a Rutgers University laboratory, RUCDR Infinite Biologics, in partnership with Spectrum Solutions and Accurate Diagnostics Labs and requires a physician's order. The F.D.A. stated that Rutgers had submitted data that showed that the saliva test was as accurate as deep nasal swab tests.
Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRNE), in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, announced on Friday that the two are developing an antibody cocktail called COVI-SHIELD that is intended to provide protection against coronavirus infection for a for up to a hopeful two months. The potential defence against the highly-contagious virus delivers three neutralizing antibodies that together would be able to build immunity to fight off COVID-19.
Contact Tracing
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Friday that the city will be partnering with Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) to help with its contact tracing efforts. Salesforce will offer the city a call center as well as a customer relationship and case management system to help officials track and isolated potential outbreaks.
The W.H.O. chief information officer, Bernardo Mariano, told Reuters in an interview on Friday that the agency will be launching an app by the end of the month that will allow users to report symptoms and potentially use Bluetooth-based contact tracing. The app will be be released globally and will allow governments to use the apps underlying technology and add their only features for use in their respective nations.