PARIS, Dec 30 (Reuters) – France to drastically reduce its ability to sequence the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus even as the end of China’s “zero COVID” policy raises fears of new variants, France reported on Friday Inter.
France created a genomic surveillance center for SARS-CoV-2 viruses in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to “detect the emergence and spatio-temporal distribution of the variants”.
EMERGEN (Consortium for surveillance and research on infections by EMERgent pathogens via microbial GENomics) brings together eight platforms, in particular the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the Hospices Civils de Lyon, the CHU Henri-Mondor in Créteil and the infectious center of the ‘APHM of Marseilles.
However, France Inter points out, EMERGEN “should stop on December 31st”.
“Starting next week, only two out of eight platforms will carry out this variant monitoring,” the radio specifies.
The Ministry of Health confirmed the reduction of the device to France Inter stating that it was “obviously attentive to the fact that the genomic surveillance of viruses continues”. Reuters attempted to contact the ministry without success.
The French authorities had justified the establishment of EMERGEN on the grounds that “the genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 is today one of the pillars of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic on a national and international scale”.
“While the so-called ‘screening’ RT-PCR tests make it possible to identify the presence of certain mutations and to suspect already known variants, sequencing (NGS) of the complete genome of the virus remains the only technique which allows to confirm them, to detect new emerging variants and to specify the mutations that characterize them,” stressed Santé Publique France.
The French decision goes against the recommendations of the European Union, which recommends strengthening genomic sequencing operations in the face of the new health situation in China.
In a letter to the health ministers of the 27 EU member states dated 29 December, which Reuters has seen, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides calls on them to take stock of national sequencing capacities and consider the possibility of testing wastewater at airports in particular, in order to detect the appearance of possible new variants of SARS-CoV-2.
The European Union’s health security committee, which met on Thursday for “coordinated action”, did not decide on any new measures. A new meeting is scheduled for next week, according to a European source.
(Written by Sophie Louet, with input from Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, edited by Myriam Rivet)
