The High Authority for Health (HAS) announced Thursday that it would deliver its opinion on Friday "on the relevance of the use of saliva tests in the strategy for the management of the Covid-19 disease".
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran had announced in the afternoon that the HAS would render "imminently" an opinion on the saliva screening tests for the new coronavirus, before a possible deployment of this alternative to the sampling in the nostrils.
It remains to "determine which audiences" could be concerned "and under what conditions these saliva tests could be carried out", he said during a press conference on the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic in France .
READ ALSO>
Covid-19: Lyon, Nice… for whom the next turn of the screw?
The saliva tests mentioned are those which consist in looking in the laboratory for the presence of the genetic material of the coronavirus from a saliva sample, an easier, faster and less uncomfortable gesture than the reference sample by swab in the nostrils.
The solution to traffic jams
The stake is immense, because these saliva tests, if they prove to be effective, could be a simple alternative to nasal swabs.
And solve the traffic jam in the labs: ultra-fast, more pleasant, less dissuasive, and voila.
Studies were launched this summer, including the Covisal study in Guyana, to check whether the virus is found in sufficient quantity in saliva for this type of test to be reliable.
The opinion of the HAS "follows the analysis of the first data of the Covisal study", specifies the health authority in an invitation to an online press point on Friday at 5 p.m.
Another new tool: antigen testing
The minister also announced Thursday the order for “5 million antigenic tests, which will have arrived by the beginning of October”, and to work “on a deployment strategy” of these rapid tests, without waiting for the results of the experiments launched these last. days and the “recommendations of scientific authorities”.
VIDEO. Covid-19: 4 hours of waiting for a screening on the weekend, "it's hell"
Antigenic tests are carried out from samples taken from the nostrils (“nasopharyngeal”).
But unlike the RT-PCR virological test, which requires laboratory analysis to detect the genetic material of the coronavirus, the antigen test identifies proteins of the virus which allows a result on the spot, "generally in less than 30 minutes", has recalled the minister.
Newsletter - Most of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
If the result is positive, this "diagnostic orientation" test must be confirmed by an RT-PCR test.
To "verify the robustness" of these new tools, which "could become a useful complement in the future" to virological tests, "300 targeted test operations" will be carried out by the Ile-de-France regional health agency, Olivier Véran clarified.
He added that the definition of “good conditions of use” for these tests would be done “in close collaboration” with the German and Italian health authorities.