The Security and Emergency Consortium has delivered to the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital the material received for the Covid-19 prevalence study launched by the Ministry of Health. This study, coordinated by the CIS and the Carlos III Health Institute, aims to determine the real incidence of the coronavirus in Lanzarote, that is, the people affected and their geographical distribution.
In this regard, although the Ministry of Health announced that 1,020 people were going to be tested in Lanzarote, the Cabildo states that samples will be taken from 1,556 people distributed throughout the different municipalities. Specifically, it indicates that it is intended to study 588 people in Arrecife, 61 in Haría, 127 in San Bartolomé, 125 in Teguise, 134 in Tías, 68 in Tinajo and 53 in Yaiza.
According to the institution, the people to be studied will be divided into two blocks. The first week will work with 592 and the second with 564. In turn, in the third and fifth weeks, samples will be taken again from the first block, while in the fourth and sixth weeks, the tests will be repeated for the people in the second group.
In each of those weeks, two samples will be taken from each person, one through a finger prick and the other through a conventional extraction. "Crossing the results of both tests, repeated three times in three different weeks, will increase the degree of knowledge about the evolution and incidence of the pandemic," the Cabildo highlights.
The president has pointed out the importance of the number of samples on which work will be done. "There are 1,156 people who will have two samples taken in three different weeks, which means that 6,936 samples will be evaluated," she said, while highlighting the important role that health centers play in this study.
"Knowing how Covid-19 has behaved is essential to know how to deal with it in the event of any outbreak or a new seasonal appearance. While we do not have specific vaccines and antivirals, our only weapon is to know as much as possible about its epidemiological behavior," said the president of the Cabildo, María Dolores Corujo.