- The National Gendarmerie Criminal Research Institute will make its mobile laboratory available to the Garches hospital for screening tests for Covid-19.
- “AP-HP hospitals are in high demand for analyzes. We therefore thought that it was possible to make them benefit from our capabilities, ”explains in an interview with 20 Minutes General Patrick Touron, commander of the judicial department of the national gendarmerie.
- In a few days, the gendarmes will be able to carry out around a thousand tests per day.
The IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie) will make its mobile laboratory available to the Garches hospital (Hauts-de-Seine). Deployed in a very short time on scenes of crimes, attacks, air or climatic disasters, it allows the "experts" of the gendarmerie to carry out up to 80 DNA analyzes per hour.
While hospitals are overwhelmed by the influx of patients infected with the coronavirus, the IRCGN offered the AP-HP a helping hand to carry out tests to screen for Covid-19. "Within a week to ten days, we will be able to carry out 1,000 on average daily," explains, in an interview with 20 Minutes , General Patrick Touron, commander of the judicial department of the national gendarmerie.
Why are you making the IRCGN mobile laboratory available to Garches hospital?
Delinquency, due to confinement, is decreasing. So I had equipment that was available and underemployed. However, the hospitals of the AP-HP are strongly requested to carry out analyzes. So we thought it was possible to let them take advantage of our capabilities. That's what we did.
We have close relationships with Garches hospital because we work with their IML (Forensic Institute), their toxicology laboratory and their biology-virology laboratory which is in great demand in the context of the epidemic. We naturally got closer to the teams of Professor Jean-Louis Hermann who were looking for screening tests.
We then tried to see if we could reconfigure our DNA analysis chain to detect Covid-19. Home biologists and ours have been talking and working on it for a week. We validated the analysis protocol together.
How many tests can this team perform?
Within a week to ten days, we will be able to perform 1,000 on average daily. For the AP-HP, it's a small amount. But this will allow them to build a more efficient medical strategy. As long as we can help them, we will.
How do you actually work with them?
We receive the samples in the form of a barcode. We render a result which we associate with this barcode and it is the Garches biological service which is in charge of the interpretations and rendering of the results.
#Partnership
Since this morning, the @GendarmeriePjgn brings to the #Garches (92) hospital its scientific expertise and its support.
Objective: increase the number of samples analyzed following the # COVID19 screening tests carried out. #AnswerPresent pic.twitter.com/OGjgSRhq0b
We plugged into their structure and eventually became an extension of the Garches laboratory. Everything is fine.
Are the IRCGN gendarmes prepared to work in this type of context?
The IRCGN has a group of investigations in degraded areas. These gendarmes also work well during an accident that occurs on a SEVESO site, therefore in a degraded chemical environment, or in a degraded radiological environment.
So these are trained, prepared people, who have had a psychological interview, a medical follow-up. Naturally, they entered the system without any constraint: they were volunteers and applicants.
Is the IRCGN mobile laboratory intended to help hospitals in other regions?
At present, the working hypothesis is to stay put because there are needs in Ile-de-France. The day when there will be no more, we will be able to move effectively. But at the moment, we have made ourselves available to the AP-HP, which has decided that setting up in Garches would meet their needs.
How many IRCGN staff are mobilized?
We plan to have five staff constantly on site: there are four biologists - two teams of two - who rotate for technical reasons every two hours.
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