“Antigen tests are great! ", but why ?

Antigenic tests -

• Covid-19 antigen tests are currently being tested in Montpellier.

• Their advantage: their speed.

  It only takes 15 to 20 minutes to have a result.

• But they have a problem: they are less reliable than PCR tests.

  A person who tests positive thanks to an antigen test must also, as part of the experiment, have his result confirmed by a PCR test.

Antigenic tests have (already) arrived in Montpellier (Hérault).

And the health professionals who already use them, whom

met this Friday, are full of praise for the formidable effectiveness that these new devices could have in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic.

But first, what is an antigen test?

This new instrument allows the patient to quickly know whether or not he has Covid-19.

The tests tested in Montpellier work with nasopharyngeal swabs, like the traditional PCR tests offered today by screening drives.

But, tomorrow, they may be salivary.

Their advantage lies in their speed: about 15 minutes to 20 minutes.

Why ?

Because they don't go through a lab.

Like a pregnancy test

Problem: their reliability.

It is around 93%, less than PCR tests.

In this phase of experimentation carried out in Hérault, the patient whose antigen test is positive must therefore have his contamination confirmed by a traditional test.

"The antigen test aims to give very quickly an indication of the possible presence of virus proteins in the sample taken", explains Alexandre Pascal, director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) in Hérault.

While the PCR test, it identifies, using a specific machine in the laboratory, the "genetic material".

This new anti-Covid-19 test works much like a pregnancy test, with a result to be read on a color strip.

“When a woman thinks she's pregnant, she buys a test at a drugstore, she takes the test, and she has an indication that tells her that she is probably pregnant, or that she probably isn't,” continues the head of the ARS in the Hérault.

And if she's probably pregnant, she has to go and have it confirmed, through a blood test.

In this experimental phase, it is the same logic, even if things will perhaps evolve later: if the antigen test is positive, it must be confirmed by a PCR test, which will give a more certain and more established response.

But so far, almost all of the people who test positive for antigen have been confirmed by the traditional route.

An antigen test, in a retirement home in Montpellier - N. Bonzom / Maxele Presse

"A quarter of an hour later ... Grandma, in the arms!"

"

"This new test?

It's awesome !

», Rejoices Jacques Finielz, the director of the Protestant retirement home in Montpellier, which uses them.

“The result is in 15 minutes, you don't wait four or five days for the laboratory to decide to tell your doctor.

It's immediate.

An employee who returns from leave, he knows immediately if he can work or must return home.

Recently, a centenarian celebrated her birthday.

The family was there, but the whole mask was hidden from a distance.

If we could have tested everyone, a quarter of an hour later ... Grandma, in the arms!

It changes everything.

If we use this test quickly and sufficiently, we can stop the epidemic, I'm sure.

"

These tests could also considerably facilitate the work of emergency physicians.

At the Montpellier University Hospital, gynecological and obstetrical emergencies are already using them.

"The results, which fall in 20 minutes, allow us to refer asymptomatic patients to Covid-19 channels if the result is positive," explains Audrey Chabert, coordinator of the Children's Pole at the CHU Arnaud-de-Villeneuve.

And if the result is negative, to leave them on a non-Covid-19 channel.

This secures the patient's journey and reassures the staff.

There are only benefits on the assumption.

"

Before they are undoubtedly deployed by the State at the national level, 400,000 antigenic tests will thus be tested in the Occitanie region.

First on these specific audiences, people who are going to undergo emergency hospitalization and the elderly in retirement homes, therefore, but also students.

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• Languedoc-Roussillon

• Covid 19

• Coronavirus

• Montpellier

• Health

• epidemic