The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, announced that the Government will buy special PCR tests to detect the omicron variant of the coronavirus, found in southern Africa and classified as “very high risk” by the World Health Organization (WHO). The exams will be administered at the Santiago airport.
At a press point, within the framework of the tenth anniversary of the Choose Living Healthy plan, the Secretary of State stated that the Ministry of Health delivered an instruction to the Public Health Institute (ISP) “so that it can act quickly and, to sequence, we are going to buy an airport-specific PCR “.
This special test “is capable of detecting protein S, which is the one that is acting as the spearhead with this virus, and we are going to reactivate our contacts with all university laboratories to advance sequencing,” added Paris.
“It is a PCR that allows us to approach or detect, with a high index of suspicion, that it is the omicron variant, therefore, when this type of variant is detected in a passenger, the quarantine will be more strict, it will be necessary to locate all your contacts, and it will try to sequence the virus. This PCR is the beginning of a more in-depth investigation, if it turns out positive, ”explained the Minister of Health.
Minister Paris called to follow the health recommendations and warned that “the information that I have today, and that came to me from Israel, is that most of the patients who have become ill, and this is a wake-up call for those who do not have been vaccinated, they are precisely those who have not been vaccinated and who were traveling from South Africa to Europe or Israel ”.
