The number of tests performed during the COVID-19 epidepic increases every day. Sciensano has decided to join forces with other laboratories in Belgium. The greater the national diagnostic capacity, the better the evolution of the epidemic will be understood and the faster each patients will get their test results.
A collective effort
Both Sciensano and other pharmaceutical and veterinary laboratories want to join the reference and peripheral laboratories that have been testing COVID-19 samples for several weeks now.
Starting Monday April 6, Sciensano in collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Biology of the ULB (IBC LAB), will conduct tests for several hospitals including the Medical Center Edith Cavell (CHIREC) and several care centers. Sciensano will start with the analysis of 100 samples a day, after which the capacity will increase further. By increasing the number of daily tests performed in Belgium:
- experts and health professionals get a better picture of the scale of the epidemic
- the patients will get their test results faster
A veterinary laboratory testing human samples
To increase the number of tests, the staff of Sciensano’s veterinary laboratories provide their expertise, validated methods, equipment and reagents.
The validated method used by the laboratory is based on the method applicable to the infectious diseases in humans service. For the analysts who are performing the tests on a daily basis, the difference between these tests and the tests they usually perform is small: instead of veterinary samples, they will now test human samples.