More Testing

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: While more testing is being developed for COVID-19 it still falls far short of the goal, Elizabeth Tracey reports.

Weeks ago, Johns Hopkins researcher Heba Mostafa and colleagues developed a rapid test for COVID-19, that is being used at the hospital to identify those infected.

Mostafa: We are looking at the genome of the virus using this test. So this will tell us whether the virus exists in the specimen or not.   :07

Mostafa says even though Hopkins and other institutions have developed tests of their own, much more testing is needed to assist in mitigation efforts.

Mostafa: If you have sick people in the area or in the population or even if you have carriers it’s better to be able to diagnose who has the virus. This will help infection control, so we can identify and we can contain and we can limit the further spread of the virus. So this is basically why the diagnosis and the detection is really important.  :20

Testing is even more critical as more evidence mounts that people are infectious even before they show symptoms. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.