The Nouvelle-Aquitane Regional Health Agency confirms this: the British variant of Covid-19 is indeed present in Vienne and Deux-Sèvres. Since December 17, 2020, the Covid screening platform of the Poitiers CHU has identified 302 suspect profiles of the variant, including 46 confirmed by the sequencing technique of the virus genome. But this specialized method is not a technique for large-scale screening, except on certain sites provided for this purpose, such as that of the Institut Pasteur for example.
A new method to confirm variants
At the Poitiers University Hospital, the laboratory in charge of the analyzes has the capacity to perform 40 sequencing per week. Gold at the moment, the platform lists around 300 suspected cases per week that must be confirmed. To be sure to keep up with the epidemic risk, Prof. Levêque’s teams will therefore change their method from next week.
Instead of carrying out a genotype of the virus, we will carry out a second RT-PCR test on the suspect sample, specifies the professor.
The sequencing will be reserved for the search for other variants not yet present in the territory, such as for example the South African or Brazilian variants.
Hundreds of analyzes every day
You should know that the Covid screening platform of the Poitiers University Hospital receives tests from Vienne, Deux-Sèvres, but also Charente. At the moment, the 26 laboratory technicians and the six secretaries of the service must manage 15 to 17,000 analyzes per week, or 2 to 3,000 per day. And in 5 to 7% of cases, these tests are positive for the coronavirus.
And of these positive cases, between 10 and 17% are British variants
According to the head of the Covid screening platform at the Poitiers University Hospital, “we are not not yet what we experienced in the heart of the second wave in November where we revolved around 24,000 analyzes per week, or 5,000 per day “, even if he recognizes it, the numbers are rising slowly.
–