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In the midst of this, the government also announced that it will support the development of products that can self-test for corona diagnosis.



The government said that there are no companies that have applied for it in Korea, but reporter Nam Joo-hyun will tell you whether this can help to find hidden infected people even though the accuracy is slightly inferior compared to other test methods.



<Reporter> The



health authorities have announced that they will support the development of products capable of self-test so that self-test kits can be used.



It usually takes eight months to develop, but they also said they would shorten the development period to less than two months.



[Kim Kang-rip/Director of Food and Drug Administration: We will shorten the development period to less than two months (cooperate) to support the acquisition of clinical specimens by linking life treatment centers and clinical institutions.]



Self-diagnosis means that individuals directly take samples without the help of medical staff. There are three methods of collecting and checking for COVID-19 infection.There are three methods: PCR, a gene amplification test, an antigen test, and an antibody test.



The government is considering taking a sample from the nose and performing PCR testing or antigen testing.



The problem is that the antigen test does not amplify the gene, so the accuracy may be inferior to the conventional test method except when the amount of virus is highest.



In a study in the UK, when a sample was collected by a specialist and a rapid antigen test was performed, the sensitivity to diagnose positive patients as positive was 79%, but only 58% were collected by the public.



Earlier, the government was negative about the introduction of self-test because of its low accuracy, but it changed its position.



[Eun-kyung Jung/Director of the Korea Disease Control Center: It means that we will increase the accessibility of the tests and use those parts as an aid to the tests for selective purposes.] It



is interpreted that the existing diagnosis method felt limited in finding hidden infected persons. Even if the accuracy is poor in the situation, it remains to be seen whether frequent inspection will be effective.



(Video coverage: Jung Seong-hwa, video editing: Park Jin-hoon)    



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