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Corona tests are running out. The materials will last two weeks. Rapid tests can help.
For common corona tests, there is a shortage of consumables. Extra-long pipette tips, so-called microplates, and PCR analyzer chemicals are in short supply around the world.
Marianne Affolter, director of the MCL Medical Laboratories molecular biology laboratory in Niederwangen, near Bern, has never experienced such a bottleneck and is concerned: “We hope to continue like this for another week and a half, two weeks at the most. Then we have to close the tests. Then maybe we could do half the tests. “The testing capacity of 3,500 tests per week is currently exhausted here in the lab. And the situation is similar with lab partners.
I also don’t know where the FOPH got the idea that there was enough test material.
“I think it’s crazy that everyone is asking people to do more testing,” says Marianne Affolter. “I also don’t know where the FOPH got the idea that there was enough test material.”
The BAG denies the bottleneck in relation to the “Pulse” health program: There is enough material if you continue to test at the same level as before.
Rapid tests as an emergency solution
In other countries the problem is already a reality: in Madrid, given the high number of infections, PCR tests had to be added. With so-called rapid antigen tests. These are less accurate, but cheaper and faster.
The use of such tests is also increasingly urgent for Switzerland. But so far it has always been said in this country that accuracy still needs to be checked.
Some are really reliable.
The review is over. We now know how its sensitivity compares to PCR testing. Some are really reliable, ”says Didier Trono, head of the Diagnostic and Testing expert group of the federal crown task force.
Now you want to make recommendations. “We are already discussing this week with the FOPH, the cantons and the cantonal doctors, and we are considering the best strategy to use rapid tests.” Didier Trono expects rapid antigen tests to be used this month.
Rapid tests aren’t for everyone
With a worldwide distribution battle emerging for rapid antigen tests, it is even more important where these tests should ideally be used.
“They could be used in aviation, for example, before passengers get on a plane. Or to check the staff of the nursing homes and the old people’s homes and schools that have a positive case, “says Didier Trono.” Test everyone quickly, then the whole class would not have to be quarantined. “You can’t imagine, for example, 3,000 people take the test in this way at the football stadium.
However, the use of rapid antigen tests could take pressure off laboratories. Until then, however, molecular biologist Marianne Affolter helps herself overcome the bottleneck with her own strategy: “If we have samples from hospitals, we try to prioritize them.” The same applies to samples of nursing home residents, nurses, and physicians: they take precedence.
