For almost three years, the PCR or antigen test has become the number 1 detection tool for Covid-19. If it is less known, there is also a screening test for the flu. But one new testalready present in some French pharmacies, could reveal, in a single gesture, if you suffer from one or the other pathology.
With a result obtained in just a few minutes, the gesture is no more painful than a classic anti-Covid test. “The sample is the same, it is nasal mucus that we will recover and that we will only migrate on a strip which will detect the antigens of the Covid, but also the antigens of the flu “indicates to France info Fabien Larue, director of the laboratory that produces the test.
Isolation even for the flu?
This test, which could make it possible to set up a tracing – and potentially an isolation – of the flu (like that for the Covid) while the disease is just as contagious as the Covid-19. Every year she even causes up to 15,000 deaths and the number of cases is difficult to count for lack of tests carried out. “You have to pass on the message not to go to work when you have the flu, because you are contagious. Even if you feel fit enough to work, you risk transmitting the virus to someone else, who will in turn transmit it to others.”assures Dr Michaël Rochoy, general practitioner, at Sunday newspaper.
Unlike a classic antigenic test, this test is not yet reimbursed by Social Security and costs 5 euros to the patient. For their part, pharmacists are awaiting validation from health authorities for these tests and the HAS is in the process of evaluating it with a view to its possible reimbursement. “We have been waiting since last year for the “go” of the Ministry of Health to develop these tests and allow them to be fully reimbursed, as for the Covid”is impatient Pierre Olivier Variot, president of the Union of pharmacists’ unions.
Source :
- Influenza and Covid epidemics: a new antigenic test can detect the two viruses, Sunday newspaperJanuary 1, 2022
