The government is being urged to implement “rapid” coronavirus and flu testing in schools after it emerged that the Italian ministry of health has backed the use of “rapid” antigen tests in schools.
The antigen tests being rolled out across Italian schools have a very short response time (15 minutes), although they are more prone than other types of tests to false positives and false negatives.
However, given its ability to give quick results, this type of test has already been successfully deployed in airports and ports to screen passengers, and has enabled identification of Covid-19 cases that would have been missed otherwise, according to the ministry.
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A document from the Italian ministry of health reads: “The use of rapid antigen tests, even considering its possible limitations, could accelerate the diagnosis of suspect Covid-19 cases in schools.
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“The frequency of flu and fever episodes in school populations during the autumn will be presumably high, and it will be necessary to test frequently and quickly to exclude the possibility of Covid-19 and to rapidly identify cases, isolate them and trace their contacts, facilitating the decisions of whether to apply quarantine measures, saving resources and avoiding an excessive workload on laboratories.
“In case pupils or school staff are suspected to have or have been exposed to Covid-19, it will be possible to use the rapid antigen test.”
The decision by Italian authorities to deploy the tests in schools has sparked a call from MPs in areas with high numbers of cases in the UK for a similar roll-out in British schools.
Rhondda MP Chris Bryant tweeted a link to information about the Italian roll-out posted by colleague Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, and asked: “Why aren’t we doing this?”
Masks need to be worn in Italian schools whenever students are not seated in class, and students need to be at least one metre away from others.
According to the Italian ministry of education, as of 29 September 223,234,800 surgical masks had been distributed by the government to schools all over the country, the majority in the Lombardy region.
