Day: April 14, 2022

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday issued an emergency use authorization for what it said is the first device that can detect COVID-19 in breath samples.

The InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer is about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, the FDA said, and can be used in doctor’s offices, hospitals and mobile testing sites. The test, which can provide results in less than three minutes, must be carried out under the supervision of a licensed health care provider.

Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, called the device “yet another example of the rapid innovation occurring with diagnostic tests for COVID-19.”

The FDA said the device was 91.2% accurate at identifying positive test samples and 99.3% accurate at identifying negative test samples.

“InspectIR expects to be able to produce approximately 100 instruments per week, which can each be used to evaluate approximately 160 samples per day,” the agency said. “At this level of production, testing capacity using the InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer is expected to increase by approximately 64,000 samples per month.”

Source: Voice of America

Luanda – The governments of Angola and Vietnam plan to give a new boost to bilateral relations, with the review of cooperation mechanisms in the health, education and construction sectors.

The information was given to the press Thursday by Vietnam’s ambassador to Angola, Vu Ngoc Minh, at the end of an audience granted to him by the Angolan President, João Lourenço.

The Vietnamese diplomat, at the end of his mission, went to the Presidential Palace to present farewell greetings to the Angolan Head of State.

Bilateral Relations

Angola and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in November 1975.

In 1978, Angola and Vietnam signed the General Agreement of Cooperation, instrument that served as a basis for the opening of several protocols inserted in the social, economic, as well as in the technical and scientific areas.

Traditionally, relations between the two countries have been limited to agriculture, health, education and trade. There are about 20 private Vietnamese companies working in Angola.

Located in Southeast Asia, Vietnam has an economy based on the electronic, industrial and agro-business sectors.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

President Xi Jinping has said that China must stick to its strict “dynamic COVID clearance” policy while the global pandemic remains serious, promising those enduring lockdowns that persistence will prevail in the end.

China’s zero-COVID policy has put millions of people into lockdown and has had a growing impact on the world’s second-largest economy, in contrast with other countries that have thrown off restrictions even though the virus is still spreading.

“We must persist putting people above all, life above all… We must adhere to scientific precision, to dynamic zero-COVID,” Xi said during a visit to the southern island of Hainan on April 13, state media reported.

“The current global pandemic is still very serious, and we cannot relax the prevention and control work. Persistence is victory.”

The coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Wuhan’s lockdown in early 2020 heralded a Chinese policy that significantly limited the spread of the virus for most of the next two years.

But new outbreaks of the fast-spreading Omicron variant began flaring early this year.

The epicenter of China’s battle with COVID is now the financial hub of Shanghai where most of its 25 million residents are under lockdown.

Shanghai authorities said on April 14 the daily tally of new asymptomatic cases had risen again, to 25,146 compared with 25,141 a day earlier. Symptomatic cases rose to 2,573 from 1,189.

But raising hopes for a shift in policy, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a guide on home quarantining on its social media page this week.

Under China’s tough rules, even people with asymptomatic or very mild cases must go into quarantine at centralized facilities, where many people have complained about poor conditions.

The CDC’s guide on quarantine at home – in a well-ventilated room stocked with masks, sanitizer and other gear – raised hopes that the rule for quarantine at state facilities might be relaxed.

But when asked by a social media user in an online comment about who might be eligible for home quarantine, the CDC referred to the old rules.

Authorities in Shanghai also gave no hint of any change in strategy at an April 14 briefing.

An official said that cases in the city continued to rise despite the lockdown in part because of a backlog of test results and ongoing transmission between family members.

Source: Voice of America