Paris (AFP)

The Covid-19 self-testing, which recently received the green light from the High Authority for Health, will first be tested with "targeted audiences", before generalization in pharmacies at the earliest. mid-April, the health ministry said on Friday.

We must ensure that these tests are used "under good conditions", argued the ministry during an online press point.

For this reason, their sale in supermarkets "is not on the agenda".

On March 14, the director general of health Jérôme Salomon had mentioned on BFMTV an imminent availability ("this week") "perhaps in supermarkets or in any case in pharmacies".

These nasal self-sampling tests are easier and less disagreeable than deep nasopharyngeal tests, the gold standard for current RT-PCR and antigen testing.

According to the notice published on March 16 by the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), any positive self-test must then be confirmed by an RT-PCR test, in particular to be able to count it as a positive case and to characterize a possible variant.

This confirmation by RT-PCR is essential for "a question of monitoring and controlling the epidemic", insisted the Ministry of Health.

The self-test represents "one more tool" but should not replace existing tests.

"Symptomatic people and contact cases should continue to do antigen and PCR tests," said the same source.

Initially, they will be the subject of a "deployment supervised by the State" to "see what works and what does not work", with "audiences that we do not test enough today" .

These are in particular young people - over 15 years old, since the HAS recommended them from that age -, for example in universities, as well as "populations remote from care" such as precarious people. or the inhabitants of certain overseas territories.

The exact list of these audiences is still being defined, says the ministry.

Participants will be tested repeatedly, about once a week, in order to "pick up people in situations where they would not have been tested otherwise" and thus "recover" positive cases "that would have gone unnoticed".

Generalization will only take place at a later stage, probably mid- or late April.

Everyone can then buy it in pharmacies, around 5 euros as is the case in Germany, but reimbursement should be limited to certain audiences (home helpers, caregivers of fragile people, etc.), said the ministry. , referring to ongoing discussions with Health Insurance.

As no antigenic test by nasal swab has yet received the CE marking necessary for its marketing in the European Union, interested manufacturers will have to submit a request for exemption to the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM).

Some manufacturers, including French players, have already sent studies of the sensitivity and practicality of their tests to the health authority.

But the examination of their files will have to wait for the decrees officially authorizing them, expected "between the end of this week and next week".

© 2021 AFP