The pharmacies are demanding in particular the right to work with liberal nurses to carry out antigenic tests against the coronavirus.

The Union of Community Pharmacists (USPO) also recommends that you be in pairs to perform this test. 

Pharmacies, now authorized to perform antigenic tests that reduce coronavirus screening times, are asking for the means and the right to work with liberal nurses to perform these tests, said on Sunday the Union Syndicale des Pharmaciens Pharmaciens (USPO ).

"We are given the opportunity to make a diagnosis, it completely changes the dimension of what we entrusted until now to pharmacists", assured Gilles Bonnefond, president of the USPO, 2nd union in the sector.

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Work with liberal nurses

He said he was trying to get permission to work with liberal nurses to perform these tests, "as the laboratories are already doing."

Gilles Bonnefond also launched an appeal "to students in medicine, in pharma or in nursing schools" to come and help carry out these tests, even if "the young people will be at the end of the term and they are preparing for exams so they will not be not necessarily available throughout the territory ".

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A result in 15 to 30 minutes

The USPO recommends a protocol for performing the tests: in pairs, by appointment, during well-defined time slots and in a space that could be outside the pharmacy, under a barnum for example.

Antigenic tests make it possible to obtain a result in 15 to 30 minutes compared to several days for PCR tests carried out by overwhelmed laboratories.

They should be available at the beginning of November "and it could start very, very quickly", assured Gilles Bonnefond.

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In a column published on Sunday in the

JDD

, the vice-president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France (FSPF), the leading trade union organization in the sector, for his part called not to sacrifice pharmacies.

He recalled that "the impact of the social security finance law corresponds to a loss of 285 million euros which will penalize our pharmacies".

"If nothing is done, the number of pharmacies could quickly drop by half, and many French people could see their local pharmacy disappear," he warned.