Facing a pandemic, the real battle is on the field.

Handling of COVID-19 is not focused on treatment but

is preliminary to detection as early as possible.

Andalas University Hospital Director Andani Eka Putra said that fighting in the field or the road involved
everyone, while fighting in the hospital could only be done by medical personnel.

"The current battle should take place in the field, not only in hospitals. If the battle fails on the field, the
battle continues in the hospital, "said Dr. Andani who is also the Head of the Andalas University Infection
Disease Diagnostic and Research Center Laboratory on the YouTube channel uploaded on 5 May.

Andani who holds a doctorate explained that the battle on the field was an attempt to identify as many
people as potentially transmitting. They are not only people without symptoms (OTG) but also people in
monitoring (ODP) or people who have just returned from traveling or traveling.

"This group of people is what we have to find and identify," he said.

He said that if this group is positive, they must be isolated or quarantined. This is the principle in
handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts in the field are to find, identify and isolate so that the
transmission chain is broken.

In doing battle on the ground, his side conducted a pool test approach. The method, which was first
used in the United States in 1943, was actually used to detect outbreaks of syphilis.

"This pool test is not a research method. This pool test does not need a sample. The expectation from
the pool test is not to calculate the prevalence or what proportion, "he said.

But the weakness of this method when used in populations with many people diagnosed positive. This
method uses techniques to trace and look back. According to him, pool tests are used for certain
conditions where the infection rate in the population is not too high.

"Pool tests are done to save energy, save time, and save costs in populations that are not much
infected," he explained.
Andani said that when conducting tests in several districts and cities, there were still zero positive cases
of COVID-10. He said, "that means in the area there were no positive Covid reports. We did a pool test
there and the results were quite good. Where Solok Selatan District produces a good picture, is still
positive 1 in 25. "

"Why are you optimistic about the ratio of 1 to 25, because we have done in the laboratory 1 positive
sample and 31 negative sample mixed, the results are still detected positive. This illustrates the sample
1/32 and 1/64 the number is still detected positive, "Andani continued.

How the Pool Test Works

Andani gave an example for testing up to 1,000 samples with a pattern of 55. This method is able to
examine samples quickly.

The 1,000 samples were divided into 5 tubes. After the first grouping, every 5 tubes are put together
into 1 new tube. From each grouping of the new cylinder, put back together into one other new tube
and so on.

So there are 5 groups of tubes named Pool (P) 1, P2, P3, P4 and P5. In P1 there are 200 tubes (out of
1,000 samples divided into 5 tubes in the first stage), P2 have 40 tubes, P3 has 8 tubes, P4 has 2 tubes
and P5 has 1 tube left.

"This shows that P5 is equal to 1 in 1,000, P4 is equal to 1 in 500 and so on," Andani said.

He said that in the laboratory managed by him, he was only able to do a pool test in the ratio of 1: 32
and 1: 64.

Usually in a study with 1,000 samples taken between P3 to P5, or equal to 11 samples. If indicated
positive, the sample is traced to P2 or above until it reaches the initial grouping of the 5 tubes.

Andani again stressed that in the acceleration of handling COVID-19 lies in the efforts of early
identification, isolation and distance.
Meanwhile, based on Litbangkes data from the Ministry of Health on the recapitulation of laboratory
examinations as of May 30, 2020 recorded Andalas University Hospital at the highest rate, which was
9,631 as of the period 18 - 30 May 2020. The average test sample per day reached 803.

National Task Force Public Communications Team