As of April 6, Belgians will be able to do their Covid-19 tests themselves. In this sense, the Belgian Minister of Health, Franck Vandenbroucke, announced on Monday that the coronavirus self-tests will be available in pharmacies from April 6.
During a press conference devoted to the new screening strategy for the coronavirus in Belgium, the deputy government commissioner, Carole Schirvel, also specified that these self-tests are rapid, self-sampled and self-read antigenic tests, “c ‘that is to say that the citizen does everything himself, and the result is obtained in 15 to 20 minutes ”.
If the self-test is positive, the result should always be confirmed by a PCR test. If it is negative, confirmation will not be necessary.
Self-tests have lower reliability than PCRs, but are useful for identifying highly infectious people, “superpropagators”, added the Commissioner.
So far, only one distributor has received approval from the Belgian Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) for self-tests, of which several million units are expected this week for distribution in pharmacies. , she noted, adding that several files are being studied with the FAMHP “and we hope that the list of self-tests will grow”.
In addition, as part of the new vaccine strategy in Belgium, companies can now ask the federal government for rapid antigenic tests free of charge to preventively test their staff who cannot work from home. In one week, 50,000 tests have already been requested, and eventually, 150,000 tests per week can be provided.
