According to Fars News Agency’s Health Reporter, Majid Bigleri, President of the Pasteur Institute, in a virtual press conference with reporters, referring to how the Corona virus entered the country, said: “Our focus was on ways to diagnose the Corona and on February 7, 11 days before the announcement Official corona arrival in our country We launched diagnostic methods at the Pasteur Institute.
He continued: “When the first cases were admitted with respiratory diseases or called influenza, we tested their samples to diagnose coronary; Assuming that people may be hospitalized with respiratory symptoms but have Covid.
The head of the Pasteur Institute added: On February 20, the samples found from Qom were sent to the health laboratory of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and then sent to the Pasteur Institute. We delivered health.
“In terms of time, we had two major events,” Bigleri said. So that the coronary cases were confirmed on Wednesday, February 20, but there were also elections on March 23, but the Minister of Health and the country’s officials decided to inform the people about the existence of coronary heart disease.
He noted: Considering that there were 3 laboratories in the country at that time, including the Pasteur Institute, the Health Laboratory of the University of Tehran and Masih Daneshvari Hospital, the possibility of diagnosis was low;
The head of the Pasteur Institute noted: Besides the head of the Pasteur Institute, other organizations were also involved; Including the Comprehensive Laboratory of the Center for Disease Management, the Medical Equipment Department of the Ministry of Health and the Board of Trustees.
Bigleri said the meetings were held daily or once every two or three days; Which kit to use to diagnose, of course in the early days they said to use antibody kits, but this was not desirable and the committee insisted on using PCR test due to the need for special devices, while the staff They were also unfamiliar with it.
The head of the Pasteur Institute stated: In such circumstances, the Ministry of Health asked all the universities of medical sciences in the country to send samples to the Pasteur Institute; As a result, in the early months and weeks of the corona outbreak in Iran, large volumes of samples were sent, and our colleagues worked non-stop, continuously delivering corona test specimens by plane and car to the Pasteur Institute; As we were late in responding, sometimes it takes up to 96 hours.
He reminded: in the first weeks, we trained several laboratories of medical sciences in the country and the protocols were presented to them; In addition, the supply of kits was considered and the kits were produced first from other countries and then at the Pasteur Institute.
“Today, at the height of sanctions, the country has a variety of consumables,” Bigleri said. While at that time all kinds of our consumables were confiscated at the airports and in the first weeks no new equipment was allowed to enter the country, and we had to rely on our knowledge; Fortunately, today there are more than 500 public, private and charitable laboratories that are members of our laboratory network.
The head of the Pasteur Institute, referring to the significant growth of the country’s laboratories in the diagnosis of infectious diseases, said: We had it, now it is provided.
He added: “Initial kits were made with the cooperation of the Vice President for Science and Technology and the Deputy Minister of Research of the Ministry of Health;” So that in late March, several manufacturing companies were licensed and the first domestically produced kits came to market in May 1999, and from June and July 1999, we no longer needed to import diagnostic kits.
“Monitoring virus mutations was the responsibility of the Pasteur Institute,” Bigleri said. While our devices were limited, today we are proud to announce that the Pasteur Institute is equipped with the latest devices to evaluate virus mutations and sequencing with good quality.
The head of the Pasteur Institute noted: “In the early days of the corona outbreak, the WHO guidelines were to test three genes for a sample, whereas if we wanted to do so, the work would be very limited, but we In two or three days, the Pasteur Institute realized that it could be detected with a gene, which, of course, we were criticized for at first, but after a few days, the World Health Organization approved our method.
He added: “Our plan at the time was to provide the kits to hospitals for testing first so that the diagnostic method could be performed.”
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