One year that they have become familiar to millions of people around the world ... Now, the Covid-19 screening tests are making a place in the homes of the French from this Monday.
Almost similar to the famous cotton swabs of PCR tests, the swabs of the self-tests are delivered in kits available in pharmacies, and only in pharmacies, from this beginning of the week.
The self-test allows anyone 15 years of age or over to sample themselves at home, when desired.
But the advantages that it presents are further doubled by a certain vagueness, on its availability, its price and the possible trouble that it could sow in the "contact-tracing" system.
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How it works ?
Do you find relatives and want to verify that you are not a carrier of Covid-19?
Self-test can be a simple solution to verify this.
It is composed of a swab shorter than that of the PCR test, which must be inserted into his nose at a depth of 3 or 4 cm before performing 5 rotations.
The following manipulation does not require a laboratory technician: the swab is to be mixed with a reagent, and the resulting solution to be applied to a sensor.
In less than half an hour, you know or not whether you are a carrier of the coronavirus.
The self-test, how does it work?
LP / Computer Graphics
When providing a kit, pharmacists are also required to provide the user guide developed by the Ministry of Health.
How much does it cost ?
The prices of the self-tests were officially published in the Official Journal this Sunday, on the eve of their marketing.
These prices "cannot exceed, by test and all taxes included, 6 euros until May 15, then beyond 5.2 euros", indicates the Ministry of Solidarity and Health.
Reimbursement by Social Security is possible but for certain professionals only.
Employees of home services or private employers working with elderly or disabled people, as well as family carers, are exempt from payment.
To benefit from it, they must present an identity document, as well as proof of their professional status.
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For the rest of the population, self-tests are not covered by Health Insurance.
"The general public already has an offer of easily accessible and supported PCR and antigen tests, in a dense network of more than 12,000 test points", justifies the Ministry of Health.
A priori, no mutual reimbursement is planned for the moment, "unless a mutual decides otherwise individually", slips the Ministry of Health.
Contacting his mutual will help to remove this doubt.
What if you are positive?
If you are negative, no action to be taken.
But in the event of a positive self-test, a PCR test is required.
This makes it possible, on the one hand, to count the positive case in the statistics and to determine or rule out the presence of a possible variant.
Above all, carrying out a PCR test allows "contact-tracing" which is not guaranteed if a person whose self-test is positive does not report.
PCR confirmation will inform contact cases of a positive person and order them to self-isolate.
For the time being, the self-test escapes registration in the tracing bases imposed for a PCR or antigen test, taken into account by the Health Insurance.
This is why the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) "recommends that the Ministry of Health and the self-test manufacturers put in place the most suitable traceability methods" for monitoring positive people.
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Why are the self-tests not sold in supermarkets?
After initially announcing the availability of self-tests in supermarkets, the government backpedaled.
"There must be a health professional to sell these tests, to explain how they work, it's not that simple," said Olivier Véran at the beginning of April.
At the start of marketing, access to self-tests in pharmacies also raises questions: they should be a major tool in the massive screening envisaged in schools at the start of the holidays.
It remains to be seen whether the stocks will be sufficient to ensure a simultaneous supply at school and in pharmacies.
"It goes up everywhere," reassures the Ministry of Health, which refuses to imagine a lack of self-tests on one side or the other.