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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
Medical validation:
January 04, 2023
A new antigenic test can now detect both Covid-19 and influenza A or B. What does it consist of? Where can it be done? How much does it cost ? Doctissimo takes stock.
For several weeks, French hospitals have been facing a triple epidemic of Covid-19, bronchiolitis and influenza. In this particular context, a new screening technique has emerged: an antigenic test that can detect both coronavirus and influenza.
Results in 15 to 30 minutes
Some health experts are already very enthusiastic about the commercialization of this test.
“This is real progress“, confided Jean-Paul Hamon, honorary president of the Federation of Doctors of France, to the Journal du Dimanche.It allows you to prescribe less antibiotics […] and justify it to the patient. It is an excellent therapeutic education tool.“, he specifies.
If the operation of the latter is rather easy – it consists of a simple nasal collection with a swab – it is nevertheless necessary to be a little patient to obtain the results, generally available in 15 to 30 minutes.
“The sample is the same (as with a swab, editor’s note), it is nasal mucus that we will recover, and that we will not only migrate on a strip which will detect the Covid antigens, but also influenza antigens“, explains Fabien Larue, the director of the AAZ laboratory which produces this test, to France info.
The test is not yet reimbursed
Although it is possible to carry out this test at certain general practitioners and/or in certain pharmacies, this screening method is not yet fully developed. For example, it is not reimbursed by Social Security.
The price of this Covid and flu test can thus amount to 5 euros in certain pharmacies.
According to information from France Info, this test could nevertheless soon be reimbursed: the High Authority for Health (HAS) is currently carrying out an evaluation of the test in this sense.
A really useful test?
For Dr. Kierzek, if this test seems promising on paper, it is not.
“This test is useless in routine, in adults or children. The Covid and the flu have the same symptoms and the same treatments. There is therefore no therapeutic sanction: this test does not concretely change the care”.