Concern is mounting in Ile-de-France with the multiplication of suspected cases of the English variant of Covid.
The giant improvised screening on Saturday in Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine) after the discovery of a case will continue this Wednesday.
"There are a lot of requests," explains the mayor's office, Marie-Hélène Amiable.
In four days since Friday, nearly 2,000 people have been detected in this city of nearly 40,000 inhabitants.
We will have to wait until the weekend to know the precise number of people possibly infected by the English variant.
This screening, which aims to limit the spread of a highly contagious virus, also aims to understand how the extracurricular facilitator was contaminated when she did not set foot across the Channel.
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But the situation is worrying beyond Bagneux.
Fontenay-aux-Roses, a neighboring town of 25,000 inhabitants, is offering screening this Wednesday, with an additional analysis for the English variant.
And in Montrouge, 49,000 inhabitants, the opposition calls for a similar screening.
Multiplication of analyzes
Six cases of variants have so far been confirmed by the Ile-de-France regional health agency (ARS), out of the 43 officially listed in France.
There are also 52 cases for which confirmations are awaited, concerning people tested positive who had direct contact with Great Britain.
To be sure that these people have been infected with the British variant, it is necessary to resort to machines like Thermo-Fischer, capable of detecting the mutation of a protein.
Confirmation is then done by a “sequencing” process carried out by the national reference centers (CNRs) at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and Lyon.
A process that takes several days.
"The possible or probable cases are now immediately considered as confirmed cases until the removal of doubt by the sequencing", reveals the ARS on Tuesday evening.
Concretely, this means that it is the ARS, and no longer the health insurance, which will pilot the contact tracing operations, as was the case for the clusters, even if there is only one concerned person.
The ARS also indicates that the 21 Paris region screening centers already in place are equipped with "thermo-fischer".
Another strong measure announced, the strengthening of surveillance in airports, when planes get off.
Clearly, any positive test will be backed up by an analysis by Thermofischer to detect the English mutant.
Suspicious asymptomatic
The Ile-de-France laboratories are also on the verge of war.
"We identify those who are able to detect the variant," guarantees Dr. Jean-Claude Azoulay, president of the regional health union (URPS) of biologists from Ile-de-France.
Biogroup is one of them.
"Out of 826 positive PCR tests carried out Thursday and Friday in our laboratories in Ile-de-France, we identified 74 suspected English mutant cases", announces Laurent Kbaier, a biologist at Biogroup, including the technical platform in Thiais (Val-de- Marne) had detected the Bagneux variant.
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"Among these suspected cases, 41 have not traveled, 48 were asymptomatic, 4 are returning from Dubai and five from Lebanon", details the biologist.
And of these 74 people, 29 are under 30 years of age: “Given the previous results, it is estimated that the proportion of cases confirmed by sequencing could be between 50 and 75%.
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Same proportion of suspected cases at Cerballiance in Ile-de-France, whose technical platform in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) is equipped with a ThermoFischer controller.
"10 to 15% of our positive cases in Ile-de-France are identified as suspected cases of the English variant", details Doctor Patrice Hérisson, the regional director.
At the same time, vaccination continues in nursing homes and among nursing staff.
Ile-de-France is the leading region in France for vaccination: 40,696 people have already received a first injection.
The region received 67,275 doses.
Faced with this contagious variant, the race against time is accelerating.
Nearly half of the resuscitation beds remain occupied by Covid patients in the region.