"Did we receive the samples overnight?" A secretary nods in a calm voice. That morning, 9:30 am, the postman went well to the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Three white parcels are already waiting on a shelf at the National Reference Center for Respiratory Infections Viruses, on the 4th floor of an ultra-secure glass building. It is here that, for weeks, scientists have joined forces to win the fight against the new Chinese coronavirus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV, which is driving the world crazy.
"Beep", the door opens onto a very confidential laboratory to which we will have access for one hour. Far from panic and rumors, along the corridors, concentrated white coats, the eye on a microscope or their computer, have been on deck day and night since the start of the epidemic. To date, eleven cases of contamination have been identified in France, including five this weekend in the ski resort of Contamines (Haute-Savoie), still hospitalized.
VIDEO. The coronavirus examined at the Pasteur Institute: "We receive 10 samples per day"
Inside the packages, protected by triple packaging and delivered by specialized carriers, the researchers collect respiratory samples or samples of blood, urine, stool, from patients possibly infected with the coronavirus.
Are they contaminated? It's up to the researchers to do the tests. Their mission is to report infection as quickly as possible. Above all avoid spreading. "These are suspicious samples sent by hospitals, warns Vincent Enouf, the deputy director of the center, little round glasses on his nose. We need four hours to say whether the person is positive or not. ” Five patients have already been diagnosed by this team of seven people at Pasteur.
"We take all the precautions"
We must act quickly, other packages will arrive during the day, about ten on average. Not a second to lose. Behind a picture window, we see Maxence, one of the four technicians, unrecognizable in the white coveralls that cover him from head to toe. It is he who is the first to be confronted with the suspect sample.
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The laboratory is level 2 security, the wearing of clothing is of category 3, used to approach the most dangerous viruses: "As we do not know this coronavirus well, we take all the precautions to protect the personnel", warns Vincent Enouf.
Lapped with high precision gestures, Maxence first put on his paper outfit, covered his feet and put on two pairs of gloves in an airlock where filtered air never comes out. A bulwark against possible contamination.
A few minutes later, the technician, seated at his bench starts by inactivating the sampling virus in case the enemy is there! We observe it behind a window. "What is in his tube will no longer be alive, he is not likely to catch the coronavirus," said the deputy director.
If Maxence takes care to protect himself, he does the same with his sample which must remain intact. He never puts his hands, even gloved, above the tubes. Each gesture is millimeter thanks to hours of learning.
Second step, in another room he will now extract the genome of the virus, its genetic information. "I imagine that you are going to ask me the question but no, they are not afraid, they are used to it, anticipates Vincent Enouf. They worked on other viruses like H1N1 in 2009, Sras, Mers ”. End of work for Maxence. For security reasons, a colleague takes over. It is up to the latter to mix this genome with a reaction liquid which makes it possible to reveal the presence of the virus.
In order to know the result, it is necessary to introduce into a large machine the plate where the mixture is located. To do this, head to a room at the other end of the corridor. On either side of a computer, sorts of large printers appear. In a slot similar to a CD player, the plate is inserted.
"Here, we wait an hour and a half and if red curves are visible on the computer, that means that the virus is there, otherwise the screen remains white", says Vincent Enouf who, in case of contamination, owes everything immediately call the health authorities.
In addition to these ten daily checks, the researchers continue to analyze, several times a day, the samples from French patients. Objective, follow their evolution. If the virus disappears from their body two days in a row, they can leave the hospital. So far, none of the first six infected patients, isolated in Paris and Bordeaux hospital rooms, have been able to leave.
“In China, it has been observed that it takes between 10 and 14 days for the coronavirus to no longer be detected in the body. This can go up to 20! This is why they had to build two hospitals in ten days, continues the specialist. It is totally justified! "
"We have been in tense for three weeks"
Pasteur researchers are also overwhelmed with work. "There are so many lines to do the tests on the machines that we were loaned another," continues the specialist while behind him purr large refrigerators at −80 degrees. This is called the bank, the virus library. Part of each sample is put in the fridge like an archive that we would keep. This is called "absolute reserves". "I'm coming back," interrupts the assistant director, disturbed again by an urgent call.
Despite the ambient calm of the laboratory, the features of the faces begin to draw, the organisms to falter. "We have been in tense for three weeks, the teams start around 8 am and finish at 11 pm," he concedes. We had to ask for reinforcement! We have to manage vacation departures, exhaustion… ”.
So when we ask to speak to other researchers, the answer is first of all categorical: "Take what we give you", we react, already lucky, we are made to understand, to enter this lab that a hundred journalists from around the world request to visit each day. The hour ends as planned, no more! With the coronavirus, researchers at the respiratory virus center must also monitor the flu, which is currently in the midst of an epidemic. "We are living in an exceptional situation," continues Vincent Enouf.
In front of a microscope, headphones on, a doctoral student is studying the flu. "There is always a lot of work," he says. A pandemic can start at any time. "Opposite, in an office, Flora, 30, juggles from one virus to another:" We have so many samples, between the flu epidemic and the coronavirus, that I also do detection tests to help my team, ”says this engineer, who takes care“ of coffee ”. "It is in my missions, to help out when necessary".
Others are working on the new coronavirus that Parisian researchers have managed to isolate and multiply in order to obtain a large quantity to better study, know and analyze it. Where is he? Can we see it? Not allowed. The lab cannot be visited. A measure to prevent the coronavirus from being stolen from this sensitive site. Out of fear, you never know, of bioterrorism.