Galicia will develop a technological platform to obtain “reliable microbiological diagnoses of any infectious pathology”, according to the Xunta after the visit of the head of the Galician Executive, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to the laboratory of University Hospital Complex of A Coruña (Chuac) where this project will take place.
As specified, the initiative seeks to develop “a specific, rapid and fully automated technological platform that will allow obtaining reliable microbiological diagnoses of any infectious pathology from any clinical biological sample “.
During the visit, Feijóo was accompanied by the laboratory staff – headed by Germán Bou, head of the Microbiology service at Chuac-, who will be in charge of developing the project, endowed with more than six million euros.
Currently, according to the Autonomous Administration, the agreement is being processed with the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which authorized the project before the appearance of COVID-19. “Now this initiative takes on special relevance to diagnose the coronavirus and other pathogens”, underlines the Xunta.
Thus, he emphasizes that the diagnosis of an infectious pathology on the same day the sample is received at the laboratory “will allow an accurate and precise diagnosis from the beginning, with a reduction in the number of complementary diagnostic tests, analytical tests and unnecessary treatments.”
Covid testing
In line with this, he emphasizes that Galicia “continues to work in the fight against the pandemic” caused by the coronavirus and points out that, with this objective, “it has already carried out more than 171,000 tests, of which almost 108,000 are PCR.”
Likewise, it highlights that the launch of this initiative of ‘Laboratory of Microbiology 4.0’ “will have a direct impact on the health of citizens, with an ultra-fast diagnosis, through the early detection of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, optimizing the antimicrobial therapy and minimizing the appearance of bacterial resistance “.
Along the same lines, he adds that it will allow the development of a solution “that combines metagenomics and culture economics, together with a Big Data platform to analyze the human microbiome and its impact on the etiology of different diseases.”
“In addition to the creation of a pioneering microbiome bank to record patient samples, which will be available to researchers and clinicians throughout the Servizo Galego de Saúde (Sergas)”.
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