StemCell Therapy

This gives Scotland an opportunity, and a pressing need, to chart a different course. This is not political hyperbole. It is based on an NHS career in cancer care where infection prevention and control are a daily struggle for patients with suppressed immune systems.

Having led bone marrow and stem cell transplantation services at both University College Hospital and the Royal Marsden, I have a strong grasp of the systematic approach needed for effective infection protection, control, and treatment.

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While most people are not as vulnerable as transplant patients, with a novel virus like Covid we simply cannot predict how and when the virus will mutate or how this could impact the general population.

There are three interdependent strands to consider: controls such as mask wearing, social distancing and hand hygiene; surveillance testing and genomic studies that chart the progress and development of the virus; and treatment the use of dexamethasone and vaccination programmes.

Get one element wrong and the whole approach could fail.

Until now weve diligently been following guidance across a range of control measures, and the vaccination programme delivered by the ever-valiant NHS workforce has been a great success but weve still seen a sharp rise in Delta-variant cases. This brings me to surveillance.

The problem is the UK and devolved governments have relied on Innova lateral-flow devices (LFDs) as the method of rapid-test surveillance.

This means taxpayers money is being spent to prop up Chinese imports that are being used in a potentially dangerous way, while our domestic diagnostics industrys superior tests have been cast adrift.

As a result, we are now at a perilous crossroads. Failure to use effective controls or robust surveillance risks the Delta variant spreading ever more rapidly, presenting a significant risk of further mutation.

I am already seeing this in my constituency where people have received repeated negative results with Innova LFD tests, only to insist on a PCR test and discover they are Covid positive and at the centre of a new cluster of infections.

To be blunt, the Prime Ministers desire to appease some Tory backbenchers with cries of Freedom Day has endangered all the advances made to date.

Thats why the Scottish government must chart an independent course. Maintain all the sensible controls, continue the vaccination roll-out, but abandon the inappropriate use of these Chinese tests in favour of superior tests made here in Scotland.

There is no good reason to follow Boris over the cliff on his Covid surrender strategy.

Neale Hanvey is the Alba Party MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath

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Covid: There's a serious problem with how we are testing people for the virus Neale Hanvey MP - The Scotsman

This entry was posted on July 21, 2021 at 1:47 am and is filed under Stem Cell Negative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |