The Da Nang Centre for Disease Control (CDC Da Nang) on Sunday was honoured with a certificate of merit from Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in recognition of its remarkable achievements in the fight against COVID-19 over the past times.

CDC Da Nang has affirmed its important role in implementing the city’s COVID-19 prevention and control actions. Praiseworthily, this agency is also the first of its kind in the country to successfully deploy the group testing method with combined samples of five people per pool in order to save time and resources, setting a good example for others to follow.

According to a report released by the Da Nang government, during the second wave of COVID-19 hitting Da Nang from late July, 2020, the five-pool sampling method has shown its practical benefits and saving on testing costs as it helped reduce to only nearly VND12 billion instead of more than VND55.4 million for individually testing samples.

From August 8 to 23, 2020, within 16 days, the number of people being tested for the virus in Da Nang reached 97,103.

This year, during the current wave of the virus, CDC Da Nang has effectively conducted group tests of ten samples, instead of five as previously, in a bid to speed up testing.

Within six days from May 8 to 13, 7,386 pooled samples collected from 69,544 people, mostly ten samples per pool, were tested for the virus. The cost of the ten-pool sampling method is up to 20 times lower than that required for testing individually.

Instead of testing one person at a time, samples from ten individuals are mixed together, and tested as one. If the test comes back negative, everyone in the pool is clear. If positive, each member of the pool is then tested individually-thus cutting down on the total number of tests.

By testing samples from many people at once, this method is the fastest and cheapest way to increase novel coronavirus screening as it can save time, chemical reagents and money. In fact, the faster testing for the virus is conducted, the sooner response measures are taken to curb the spread.

Reporting by PHAN CHUNG – Translating by A.T