Mayabeque, Cuba: The Cuban National Center for Biopreparations (BioCen), located in Bejucal, developed the first means of transport, intended for the collection and transfer of nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal clinical samples from patients for the diagnosis of Covid-19.
According to information from the Granma newspaper, this product enables the adequate preservation of the tests, from the moment of collection to their processing by real-time PCR in the different molecular biology laboratories of the Caribbean island.
Previously, the Neuroscience Center of the largest of the Antilles had developed a swab for taking samples, with which, together with the transport for viruses, Cuba completes a package of its own tools for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, a pathogen causing Covid-19.
The BioCen researcher and main author of the means of transfer, Marilyn Díaz, commented that this team provides technological sovereignty and substitutes imports, since similar products are sold in the international market at high prices.
She specified that the institution intends to elaborate the figure of 10 thousand daily transport units.
The creation of this instrument is the result of the collaboration between BioCen and the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine in the country, Granma points out.
In addition to other institutions of the health system such as the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology of Havana and BioCubaFarma that favored the evaluation of the transport for viruses.
According to the researchers, the National Center for Biopreparations industrially scaled the product in seven days to later receive its health registration, granted by the State Center for the Control of Medicines, Medical Equipment and Devices of Cuba.
