As the COVID-19 pandemic is approaching an end in China, on May 14, Wuhan has kicked off a 10-day mass-testing to screen all its 11 million citizens for COVID-19. This effort by Wuhan aims at prompting the recovery of the economy and society, resuming normal life of citizens, helping the control and prevention of the pandemic, boosting work resumption, market resumption, and school resumption, and ultimately building a safe environment for students to study, workers to work, and residents to live.

The scale of this mass-testing is enormous but this screening must be carried out as soon as possible. When Hybribio was notified of the mass-testing, we immediately summoned the professionals, from our medical laboratories across the nation, to Wuhan. On May 13, more than 30 Hybribio’s professionals gathered at the BSL-2 laboratory in Wuhan Hybribio Medical Laboratory to contributing to the “10 days of battle” in Wuhan.

An excellent technician of Guangzhou Hybribio medical laboratory has served twice on the front line in Wuhan

This is a hard and pressing mission. To ensure the smooth transition from sample collection, sample acceptance and transportation, to accurate and effective test in the laboratory, and finally, to uploading accurate test results to the CDC system, every member of the team must collaborate effectively. In order to pull this off, our professional team has been trained for dealing with such a large volume of samples and every member is so responsible that they worked seriously and rigorously under the high standards we set for ourselves.

Hybribio staff burning the midnight oil

Earlier on May 14, the Wuhan Hybribio special team, divided into 4 groups, arrived at the sample collection spot in Qingchuan Street, Hanyang District. On the battlefield, with rich practical experience, every member collaborated so smoothly with the local medical workers to deploy the sample collection tent, disinfect and sanitize the spot and collect samples. By using our patented Screening Sample Collection System, the information of sample and the sample itself can be sent to the laboratory at almost the same time and the test results can also be uploaded in batches through QR code and barcode, which optimized the sample acceptance and increased the sample collection efficiency and transportation efficiency. With adequate high through-put devices and four shifts of professional experimenters, our daily test volume has reached 10,000 tests since the beginning of the “10 days of battle”.

Sample collection spot

On the battlefield, we stuck to the high standards we set for ourselves: for every sample collected, five quality controls are set. The Wuhan CDCs, district CDCs, and relevant authorities have come to the spot for investigation and inspection several times and they highly appreciated our standardized test procedures, professional biosafety protection and the efficient laboratory team.

Government officials visiting our laboratory

On May 24, Wuhan’s 10-day mass-testing has come to an end. Hybribio has finished this task successfully. Behind Hybribio’s success in this battle, it is the collective effort, both physical and mental, of all Hybribio staff. We have collected and tested more than 100,000 samples within 10 days. Every sample is tested under strict quality controls and thus we are confident about every test result we produced. However, there’re still other battlefields await us and we will fight alongside the whole nation till the last moment.

 Hybribio staff who have fought on the frontline in Wuhan