• NATALIA PUGA

    Pontevedra

Wednesday, April 22, 2020 - 16:09

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Galicia will test massively from health centers to find out the real situation of the Covid-19 pandemic among its population and the percentage of citizens who have already had the virus, those who are already immunized and those who have not yet had contact with him. There will be 101,850 analyzes throughout the community that will allow drawing a serological map of the disease that provides the Galician Government with "useful information" to make decisions at a social and economic level, both for de-escalation and in the face of a possible outbreak.

The analyzes will begin this Thursday, April 23 and the first results can be had in 10 days. They will represent the "most powerful" epidemiological sample carried out so far by the Galician Health Service in order to know what the situation and development of the pandemic are "with a very important sample of the Galician population".

The Xunta de Galicia proposes an epidemiological study much more ambitious than the one proposed by the central government in the coming weeks, which will involve carrying out 62,000 tests throughout the country, and for which the President of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has already rebuked the Galician regional leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, convinced that this type of analysis "has to be carried out by the Government of Spain" and that the seroprevalence study to be carried out at the state level will already be a sample "representative enough to know what it is photography of the pandemic in the country. "

The arguments of the central government have not succeeded in making Feijóo cease its efforts and, in defense of its own epidemiological study, alleged that it is "perfectly compatible" with the sample made by the central government and that all the data will be sent to the Ministry of Health . If the central government intends to test 62,000 people throughout Spain, there would be around 4,000 in Galicia, a proportion that will not allow obtaining a map of the situation as complete as the macro-study promoted by the Xunta.

Feijóo explained that "complete antibody tests" will be carried out, in such a way that they will detect the antibodies generated by each patient and, therefore, know if that person has overcome the disease or is susceptible to being infected. "It is going to tell us which people have been in contact with the virus, be it people who have passed it and are immunized or those who have an acute phase of the disease," that is, it will reveal the percentage of Galicians who, with symptoms or without them, they have had the disease.

Plans are underway and the Galician health authorities have already outlined the details. Starting this Thursday, a first phase of the sampling will be carried out with 50,925 people ; and, four weeks later, at the end of May, new samples will be collected from as many citizens. In order to decide who to test, advice has been requested from the Galician Statistical Institute, which will determine the size of the sample necessary for the results to be representative by groups of regions and for the seven large Galician cities.

In fact, in the seven large Galician cities the population under investigation is already defined and, according to the Ministry of Health, 2,600 samples will be carried out in Ferrol, 5,800 in A Coruña, 2,750 in Santiago, 2,750 in Lugo, 3,400 in Ourense, 2,700 in Pontevedra and 6,800 in Vigo. They will be people with a health card from the Galician Health Service and, among all of them, the participants in the study will be chosen randomly, differentiated by sex, age, large municipalities and territorial areas.

Once all the details have been defined, the Galician Institute of Statistics will send the list of selected people to each health area and the Galician Health Service will be in charge of carrying out the tests and collecting information. The protocols are also established and each health center will have a specific population assigned to study with whom they will contact by telephone.

The study will be completely voluntary and the analysis methodology will be through a hair puncture and taking advantage of the rapid tests sent weeks ago by the Ministry of Health. After receiving the first 57,760, the Xunta was very critical that they do not allow "a reliable diagnosis" and, therefore, they cannot be used as a single test, but "supplemented" with PCR. Now, he will use those initials and those received later with the recommendation to use them in residences or prisons to prepare an epidemiological map of the community. They will give it a different use than that set by the Ministry of Health because, as Feijóo indicates, these tests "are valid for conducting surveys, but not for certain diagnoses . "

People who decide to participate will be given an appointment to come to their health center to take the sample and the result will be known in 15-20 minutes. In the case of testing positive, a PCR test will be performed to confirm this and clinical judgment will be followed.

Feijóo defends the need for this study because it will serve to know what the virus situation is and to be able to make decisions when planning normalization measures and have accurate information to be prepared for possible outbreaks, since it is necessary "not to let your guard down" .

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