"We had the doubt that those volunteers carrying out these services could have been, in some way, in contact with the virus and this worried us a lot. "We started to do serological tests because we needed to have answers and to give answers," said Luca Dure, mayor of the town of Cisliano, just outside Milan, who said the municipality had to be sure that volunteers looking after the elderly had not been infected. 21, remains one of the worst affected regions in the world, accounting for around half of Italy's 25,000 COVID-19 deaths.Įven before regional authorities began testing, a string of local municipalities had started testing on their own, while several large employers, planning for the period following a return to work, have also set up testing programmes. Lombardy, where the outbreak first emerged on Feb. The tests in Lombardy will be carried out initially on people in voluntary quarantine, either because they have influenza-like symptoms often seen in COVID-19 patients or because they are suspected of having the disease.įollowing the neighbouring regions of Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, which began testing earlier this month, Lombardy is the latest of a patchwork of testing programmes in Italy, which is expected to begin easing the national lockdown from May 4. He said the tests would have to be complemented by swab tests to confirm a patient's status. "The tests offer some certainty today and could give us more tomorrow," Giorgio Gori, mayor of the town of Bergamo, one of the major centres of the outbreak, told SkyTG24 television. They come as authorities around the world have begun to step up broad-based testing programmes they hope will give them a clearer picture of the spread of the virus, as they plan a gradual easing of lockdown measures that have kept much of the world's population in confinement for weeks. Unlike nasal swab tests, which look for the presence of the coronavirus directly, the serological tests look for antibodies that indicate viral contagion, but they are quicker and simpler to administer. The so-called serological tests on intravenous blood samples, using a kit designed by diagnostics specialist Diasorin, will be carried out in 14 of the worst-hit areas of Lombardy before being extended to the whole region next week. MILAN (Reuters) - The northern Italian region of Lombardy, at the epicentre of Europe's worst coronavirus outbreak, began an antibody testing programme on Thursday as it prepared to start opening up its economy following weeks of lockdown.
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