If the virus continues to cause so many problems in Europe, it is mainly because of the variants. Here, a great deal of effort is made to identify the people who are carriers and to isolate them. And all of that goes through the Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec.
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It is a strategic location in the fight against COVID-19. The first step is to find the positive cases after screening. This is done in 80 laboratories across the province. A screening is then carried out for the presence of variants. This analysis is carried out in 15 designated centers. Until a few weeks ago, the Public Health Laboratory was the only one to do so.
“It is the interpretation of the four different curves, the four targets that we are looking for, that allows us to determine whether or not there is a mutation,” says Lyne Desautels, coordinator in molecular biology.
The operation to perform the sequencing takes 24 hours. The whole preparation and analysis process takes at least 10 days.
“By screening, we have a little more than 2000 which were screened positive, therefore detected as presumptive variants. Afterwards, confirmed by sequencing, we have a little more than 500. Montreal, Lanaudière, Laurentides, Laval, these are essentially British variants ”, explains Sandrine Moreira, provincial head of Sequencing.
Currently, 1,200 sequencing is done in Quebec and this number continues to increase. We hope to reach the 1800 mark in the coming weeks.
They focus primarily on variants, to alert infected people and stop the spread. Their work could help us get back to normal life more quickly.
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