The large-scale experimental testing campaign intended to identify “dormant clusters” began Monday in Île-de-France, where residents of 32 municipalities will be able to benefit from free screening, announced the Regional health agency (ARS).
As part of this operation, announced last week by the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, a total of 1.3 million people will receive health insurance vouchers offering them to go for a virological screening test (” PCR ”).
These tests can be carried out in any public or private laboratory. In the event of a positive result, serological tests will be proposed “to find out whether the contamination is old or recent”, specified the director general of the ARS, Aurélien Rousseau.
According to the health agency, 32 municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants were selected for this vast campaign. Some have already been the subject of ad hoc operations organized by the ARS in recent weeks, others have not.
The municipalities concerned
Of the 32 municipalities, eight are in Seine-Saint-Denis (Gagny, Bobigny, Stains, Bondy, Drancy, Le Bourget, Epinay-sur-Seine, Sevran) and eight in Val-d’Oise (Goussainville, Garges- lès-Gonesse, Cergy, Argenteuil, Bezons, Gonesse, Sarcelles, Villiers-le-Bel). These two departments are among the most affected by the coronavirus epidemic.
The campaign will also concern Val-de-Marne (Villejuif, Limeil-Brévannes), Hauts-de-Seine (Colombes, Nanterre, Gennevilliers, La Garenne-Colombes), Yvelines (Mantes-la-Jolie, Les Mureaux, Limay , Mantes-la-Ville, Trappes, Elancourt), Essonne (Grigny, Evry) and Seine-et-Marne (Melun, Montereau-Fault-Yonne).
The importance of the socio-economic factor
According to the ARS, three criteria were used to establish this list: an epidemiological criterion (contamination rate higher than the national average); a criterion of access to screening (lower than average proportion of tests carried out); and a criterion linked to the economic and social situation of the municipality.
This socio-economic factor “is important” because “we know that the epidemic has hit more strongly in recent months the territories with poor populations”, underlines Aurélien Rousseau.
