As the world grappled with the devastation that Covid-19 brought to the entire world, it has been the work of scientists and researchers that has made it possible for us to slowly regain what had been lost in the past 2 years. The loss of our way of life, the loss of jobs, the loss of family members and loved ones, and even the despair and mental health issues that each one had to deal with as covid-19 wreaked havoc on a global scale are not something that we can easily forget or set-aside as we go back to our lives. Imagine walking up the street and wondering why you haven’t seen your neighbor and then realize that he or she died of covid-19, wherever we look, we will always be reminded of that harrowing experience. Not to mention the fear and anxiety that we have to live with for a good year and a half, where every time you go out, you wonder if it is the time, you will fall ill and contract the virus. It has been a lot to handle even for those who are healthy, strong, and financially secure, the lockdowns and restrictions and being forced to stay indoors have not been easy to do but despite all of that we have technologies like sequencing covid-19 to thank for.
If there is one thing that the pandemic in this last two years have taught us, it is that illnesses and diseases are a great equalizer, it did not matter whether you were rich or poor, whether you had power or not, whether you lived in a big house or on the streets, we all had to experience the same fear and anxiety and grief over all the friends and family we lost. At present, the world is becoming livelier, and more and more are opening their borders, and businesses and we finally have a glimpse of being able to get our lives and our world back. We owe this to all the researchers, scientists, and laboratories who have worked tirelessly so that we would have scientific data and evidence to work with and be able to develop treatment approaches and even develop a vaccine against it.
The Importance of Sequencing Covid-19 Virus
The covid-19 pandemic caught the world unaware; it was in the middle of 2019 that hospitals were reporting a spike in flu-like symptoms among those hospitalized and very soon people were dying from it. We have long watched science-fiction movies about viruses and pandemics and we never thought that it would happen to us this lifetime. Very quickly the virus spread across countries and the number of people dying from it was unprecedented, it was even more than the two world wars combined. Since the covid-19 was a new virus, no one knew what it was, how it behaved, and what effects it could have among those who got infected by it and survived. It put a strain on the healthcare system of all countries and not one country could claim that they were doing better than others. The demand for correct information regarding covid-19 was very high and scientists tried different methods to be able to study the structure and behavior of the virus. This is where whole-genome sequencing was most valuable, by mapping out the whole genome of the virus, scientists were able to learn more about the virus and how it was being transmitted, and where it was likely to cause damage in the body. The lack of prior knowledge about covid-19 had made it crucial to develop methods in the laboratory that would be able to study the virus at a cellular level such as the sequencing of covid-19. It was the only way for us to at least have a fighting chance against the virus.
The Process of Sequencing Covid-19
The Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have made it possible for us to track covid-19 transmission and mutation as well as be used in testing protocols and guide the development of vaccines and therapies for the management of a covid-19 infection. In the past, whole-genome sequencing has been used to examine the genetic blueprint of an organism or individual of which information from that had been used in scientific explorations especially in drug development and disease management. However, the ensuing global pandemic has made laboratories in the country focus more on learning about the genetic make-up of the virus. To do this, the right technology had to be developed first, and this is where whole genome sequencing procedures were adopted. As testing laboratories gathered samples with live covid-19 viruses, the sequencing of covid-19 was made possible through NGS technology. The entire covid-19 virus was examined using a panel that was designed to identify the primer pairs of the virus and then distribute these pairs in two pools and was then amplified to prepare it for the sequencing procedure. Once the covid-19 DNA was amplified, the sequencing interrogation began with mapping out the entire viral sequence. After coming up with a DNA sequence of the covid-19 virus, another technological advancement was included to enable the detection and mapping of the virus as it mutates. Viruses are living organisms and they quickly mutate over a certain period in response to the different physical conditions of the body that was infected. Scientists and doctors needed to know how the covid-19 virus mutates so that treatment options can be updated or modified to the new mutation.
The Importance of Sequencing Covid-19 Variants
As the covid-19 virus mutates it has been responsible for the emergence of various variants of the virus that proved to be deadlier than the first one. It is important to carry out the sequencing of covid-19 variants as it will aversively impact vaccine efficacy, transmission rates, the severity of the disease, as well as a high degree of accuracy in testing laboratories and the possibility of the increase in false negatives. Thus, it is important to be able to carry out sequencing studies of the whole genome of the virus even when it keeps mutating.
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