The goal is not to miss the variants of the virus, first of all the dreaded “Delta” mutation (the former Indian) which is more contagious and reduces, even if slightly, the defense of vaccines.
To do this, the new Italian sequencing network just announced by the Higher Institute of Health will aim to sequence 5% of positive swabs in periods of high circulation of the virus and 20% in low-circulation ones.
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An important leap forward compared to the average held so far by the regional laboratories always coordinated by the ISS which in the period from the end of December to last May guaranteed the sequencing of only 1% of the positive swabs.
The idea is that of a permanent facility to manage this and future infectious emergencies. The network, promoted by the Ministry of Health with structural funding (it should start with about 14 million euros) will be composed, for the part relating to sequencing, by regional reference microbiology laboratories, military health laboratories, laboratories of supporting microbiology identified within each Region and will make use of the contribution of centers with high sequencing capacity.
Meanwhile, yesterday, the ISS in its weekly report underlines the effect of vaccinations on the identikit of the new infected: “Most of the new reported cases of infection are in unvaccinated subjects”.