France is equipping itself with a new weapon against Covid-19, saliva tests, with the hope of reducing test times.
These saliva tests can be used, but only in people with symptoms, according to an opinion from the High Authority of Health (HAS) issued Friday.
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On the other hand, the HAS does not recommend them on people without symptoms.
The government is looking for ways to reduce waiting times that are too long, both for doing the RT-PCR test and for getting the results.
To solve this problem, the authorities have already defined priority people (people who have a prescription, those who have symptoms or caregivers).
In addition, another type of testing, antigen testing, is now allowed, but not for people with symptoms or "
contact cases
".
The antigenic tests are also carried out from samples in the nostrils, by swab.
But unlike the RT-PCR test which requires laboratory analysis, to detect the genetic material of the coronavirus, the antigen test identifies virus proteins in "
15 to 20 minutes
", underlined the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran.
Antigenic tests are an "
element of diagnostic orientation not intended to replace the diagnosis carried out by (...) RT-PCR
", according to a decree published Wednesday in the Official Journal.
HAS is currently evaluating them to see if they can also be used to diagnose symptomatic patients.
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As we can see in the infographic below, there are different types of samples to detect the presence of the virus or to detect antibodies: