01.12.2020 – 13.40 – Friuli Venezia Giulia once again confirms its position as a leading international player in the field of scientific research. After the studies on ozone therapy, whose research is currently being analysed, a new contribution in the fight against the pandemic comes from the regional research institutions.
This was announced at a press conference held yesterday by the President of the Region, Massimiliano Fedriga.
The important news comes from Udine where, thanks to the work carried out by a Friulian company, a new method is being tested in the laboratories of the Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Friuli Centrale (Asufc) under the guidance of Dr. Francesco Curcio, a new method for taking DNA from the virus using no longer nasopharyngeal swabs but saliva.
The study, explained Fedriga, has so far given striking results above all expectations: “on symptomatic subjects who were tested both nasopharyngeal and by saliva, a 100% adjacency was found”.
Not only that, in some cases “the saliva test was even 10% more sensitive”. The “nasopharyngeal sample is negative because there are few or no cells, and this is the risk of the classic swab”, he pointed out, “with saliva this problem does not exist because it contains enough cells to be analysed”.
From here, one of the elements that would make this study, if confirmed, a real revolution at national and international level, because, the president explained again, it would allow to totally solve the problem that we have, instead, in the case of nasopharyngeal swabs, which need a healthcare worker to carry out the sampling.
“This would totally change the perspective of employing prevention staff” he pointed out, “who could be invested for the tracking part, i.e. the analysis and support of the sample itself”.
Moreover, he added, a further positive fact is that “the stability of the samples has been verified at 24 and 48 hours both at room temperature and in the refrigerator at four degrees” and “there is no perishability, since no variation in loss of positivity has been seen”.
With regard to the timing, it has been explained that the use of this saliva test is now being tested in the ongoing massive screening of the inhabitants of the municipalities most affected, yesterday in Paularo, in combination with rapid tests. The hope is that in the next few days the data will be sent to the Italian National Institute of Health for validation.
However, another positive piece of news in the field of scientific research applied to the fight against the pandemic also comes from Friuli Venezia Giulia, this time from Trieste, where a request for accreditation by the University of Trieste has been sent to AIFA (Italian Medicines Agency) to start a new study, led by Professor Marco Confalonieri, which sees as central “the use of an antiparasitic drug for which it is assumed, at least from laboratory analysis, that it can act as a prophylaxis for no-Covid patients” explained Fedriga. “This will be tested – on a voluntary basis – in nursing homes, on the most fragile subjects, as it has no side effects, and the hypothesis is that it can lower the risk of contagion or make it asymptomatic”.
Two important innovations which, together with the above-mentioned research on ozone therapy and the “Trieste Protocol” on the use of cortisone – which has also become an internationally recognised standard – show, once again, the commitment of the Friuli Venezia Giulia health system in the fight against coronavirus, offering a concrete contribution, both nationally and internationally, which could change the fate of the fight against the pandemic.
[c.c]
