"We won't have any yet on Monday": pharmacies are struggling to provide themselves with self-tests

REPORTAGE

These new tools are eagerly awaited in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic.

After receiving the green light from the High Authority for Health, the Covid-19 self-tests will be available in pharmacies from Monday, as the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had announced in the online media Brut.

These tests allow you to check yourself if you are positive for the disease, thanks to a ready-to-use kit.

But in reality, few pharmacies will be able to offer these self-tests for sale on Monday, because very few have been able to obtain stocks.

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As in many other shops, it is therefore impossible to attempt to obtain these famous tests in this pharmacy in Villiers-sur-Marne, in the Paris region, where Europe 1 went.

When questioned, the pharmacist assures us that no test will be available on Monday: "We will not have one yet".

No stock, and not really practical information, for example on the cost.

Because it must be remembered that the State has preempted almost all of the first tests for the start of the new school year, and that there are only very few manufacturers approved for the moment. 

Professionals deplore the lack of a legal framework

But according to pharmacists, the real problem is that on the eve of the start of the sales authorization, there is still no legal framework.

"We do not know if it will be restricted to a category of the population, if we will have a recommendation on selling prices, to know at what price we can sell them or at what price we can buy them. we are in the dark ", explains to Europe 1 Bruno Maleine, president of the order of pharmacists of Île-de-France.

"Some suppliers also recommended that we be careful about the order or pre-order that we could make," he says. 

In the Villiers-sur-Marne pharmacy, self-tests sold individually should be available by the end of April.