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Tuesday night, during the broadcast Half past eight In La7, Education Minister Lucía Azzolina said that at this moment, to face the coronavirus epidemic in schools, rapid tests are needed because “we cannot quarantine our students because they have a cold or have an influence.” Azzolina later praised the Emilia-Romagna region that “made the tests available in pharmacies.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqxO8b_KANs
However, the immunologist Antonella Viola, invited in connection with the program, replied to the minister and reminded her that the tests available free of charge in Emilia-Romagna in pharmacies are rapid serological tests and not antigenic.
Viola explained to the minister that serological tests are “an epidemiological tool that serves to understand the prevalence of infection in the population,” that is, to understand how many people, after being infected, have developed antibodies. Viola said that what is needed for the school at the moment are rapid antigen tests, that is, those that quickly establish whether a person, at that moment, is positive and potentially contagious.
– Read also: The many tests to know if you have the coronavirus
The test most used by health authorities is colloquially called the “swab test” (molecular test). It is done with a swab (a kind of long, thin cotton swab) that is inserted deep into the nasal septum to collect mucus and saliva samples. The sample is then treated with certain substances (reagents) and with machinery that serves to amplify the amount of genetic material of the coronavirus possibly present.
Serological tests, on the other hand, are performed by analyzing a blood sample and are not used to directly detect the presence of viral genetic material, as is the case with the swab test, but to measure the amount and types of antibodies (immunoglobulins , I g) produced by our immune system to defend itself from what comes from outside (antigen), and that can pose a threat, such as coronavirus.
Instead of looking for the genetic material of the coronavirus (molecular test swab) or antibodies (serological test), an antigen test looks for particular proteins typical of the virus. The name derives from the fact that the presence of antigens is detected, the foreign substances present in our body that cause a reaction, which, as we have seen later, leads to a response from the immune system. The antigen test takes less time than the molecular test to provide a result, but it is not always as reliable.
The many tests to know if you have the coronavirus
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