La pandémie COVID-19 a mis les réunions virtuelles au centre de la scène. Le département de microbiologie du LNS lance un nouveau forum en ligne, nommé Lux-MicroHub, avec l’objectif de partager avec vous notre savoir et nos connaissances scientifiques autour des dernières nouvelles en microbiologie clinique, et ce sur une base mensuelle.

C’est donc avec grand plaisir que nous vous invitons à participer au 2e webinar Lux-MicroHub, en anglais, qui aura lieu ce jeudi, 17 décembre à 13h00. Pour participer, vous n’avez qu’à vous connecter via le lien Webex suivant: https://lns.webex.com/lns/j.php?MTID=m06ecdec313e5027d9dac65d4d6c6fb2c à 13h00.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the human population in December 2019 in China and has since spread causing a pandemic declared by WHO. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had various implications that passed the public health impact to major effect on global economy.

The early diagnosis has been crucial not only in management of clinical cases but also in public health programs to control the spread of the infection. Diagnostic laboratories had been confronted with large numbers of COVID-19 RT-PCR kits that are commercially available. As of 10th December 2020, FIND listed 257 molecular assays on their website as being on the market and CE marked (www.finddx.org/covid-19/pipeline).

The Microbiology department at LNS has verified different diagnostic kits and methods including saliva testing kit, no extraction approach, pooling approach and evaluated them according to different criteria, number of target genes, inclusion of internal control, CE marking, operator assessment, limit of detectability and clinical sensitivity and specificity. The department also developed a unique sequencing solution, which is implemented in the national respiratory viruses surveillance program (ReViLux).

Dr Abdelrahman will address diagnostic algorithm of SARS-CoV-2 and the international trends. We will have Q&A session, so feel free to post your question at microbiology@lns.etat.lu by 17/12/2020.