Zoonotic Diseases
Responding to a pandemic IAEA helps 128 countries to stem the spread of COVID-19 in largest ever assistance project By Omar Yusuf
Since early 2020, COVID-19 has placed an incredible burden on public health systems around the world. Policymakers, laboratory technicians and healthcare professionals have all been called upon to meet the growing demand for detection equipment and capacities, to slow down and control the number of new infections. Following requests from countries around the world, the IAEA immediately began channelling assistance.
(Photo: D. Calma/IAEA)
In partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and delivered through its technical cooperation programme, the IAEA organized hundreds of shipments to diagnostic laboratories around the globe. These shipments included laboratory hardware, like real-time RT–PCR kits; diagnostic reagents and laboratory consumables; biosafety supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE); and laboratory cabinets for the safe handling and analysis of samples. Here, a researcher from the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre prepares to conduct a real-time RT–PCR test.
(Photo: D. Calma/IAEA)
Real-time RT–PCR is a nuclear-derived technique for detecting pathogen-specific genetic material and is widely used for detecting the COVID-19 virus (see infographic on page 8). While laboratories in many countries have used real-time RT–PCR for diagnosing diseases, such as the Ebola and Zika viruses, some of them needed support in adapting this method for SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, as well as in increasing their national testing capacities.
18 | IAEA Bulletin, September 2021 (Photo: H. Cossa/ Mozambique)
