With a “very large” test campaign, according to Minister of Health Olivier Véran, the government wants to identify asymptomatic people in order to avoid the possible formation of new ones clusters.
1.3 million tests: this is the promise announced by Olivier Véran Thursday, in an interview with World, for thirty communes in Île-de-France. The idea is to distribute health insurance vouchers to residents to carry out a virological test in any public or private laboratory, even if they have no symptoms.
It is a “recovery of what already exists in large part: we are looking for asymptomatic patients, ie 40% to 60% of possible forms of coronavirus,” said Alain Ducardonnet, health consultant at BFMTV. “We have finally reached the stage where we have to do the tests.”
These tests are aimed at “areas where there is less medical density, where the social level is lower and where access to tests is more complicated”, he continues.
“Experimentation stage”
This “very large-scale campaign which is aimed at all residents” will target “territories near identified clusters where […] there is a viral reservoir, with asymptomatic people, who can transmit the virus without knowing it, “explained Olivier Véran on Thursday.
“We are at the moment in the experimentation stage to see if this corresponds to a wish of the French. This experiment can then be extended to other regions,” added the minister. Today, four regions (Ile de France, Grand-Est, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Hauts-de-France) account for 74% of patients hospitalized in intensive care because of Covid-19.
Yves Buisson, epidemiologist and president of the Covid-19 group of the National Academy of Medicine, also considers that these tests are important because even if the epidemic is at its end, “the virus continues to circulate on the territory”.
“It is smart to search for traffic areas to control them. Screening for clusters works very well. But given the number of asymptomatic subjects, there is a traffic which is done at low noise but which continues on the territory and threatens the people to see epidemic outbreaks reappear, “he explains.
It is now necessary to “do prevention”, sums up Yves Buisson. “We have to look for where the uneven areas of transmission are: the centers of health establishments, those which house people in very precarious situations, big companies, slaughterhouses …”, he adds. For Alain Ducardonnet, this will make it possible to establish “an epidemiological map of the virus” and to prepare for “a possible second wave”.
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