Monitoring of Covid in wastewater continues in Limoges. It is the team of Professor Sophie Alain, virologist at the Limoges University Hospital and member of Inserm, who has been working on the subject for two years. At the moment, readings are taken every week because “for us it’s not really decreasing, there is a lot of carrying the virus”summarizes Sophie Alain.
To say it, the virologist helped by Christophe Dagot, teacher-researcher at the National School of Engineering in Limoges, has set up a technique to detect the presence of the virus, with noted on very specific points, at the level of collectors in certain districts, at the exit of establishments such as retirement homes, prison, the Borie campus or at the entrance to wastewater treatment plants: “As we know, this virus, when it affects young people, is often asymptomatic. So the result is that we manage to detect where the virus is, even though the cases were not hospitalized.”
The “One Health” program
The work of Professor Sophie Alain’s team has benefited from support of 200,000 euros from the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region. Research which is now of interest for the regional program “One Health”, “Une santé”, in French.
Gilles Bœuf, regional adviser is responsible for developing this program: “Today the three quarters of the diseases that have appeared since 1940 are what are called zoonoses, diseases that pass from animals to humans. The Covid-19 is an example, we start from bats and we arrive at humans. Bovine tuberculosis here is very important. Further south, there is avian flu… In fact, it’s doing what we did before, but organizing a lot of the synthesis of all that. Our political and scientific duty is to prevent it from happening again.”
For two days, in Limoges, the elected official met doctors, veterinarians, scientists, but also legal specialists and he was able to realize that here “we know what One Health is, it’s been organized for some time. I have a good basis to think about”.