Coronavirus: Experts push for mass testing on Europe’s outbreak frontlines

France has tested 11,000 people, compared to 125,000 tests conducted in the United Arab Emirates

Social distancing measures in effect in Rome. AP

Leading epidemiologists are pushing for large-scale testing for the novel coronavirus as worsening outbreaks continue to ravage countries across Europe.

Experts have pointed to the success at limiting the spread of the virus in a small Italian town where mass testing, including tests on symptom-less patients, brought an effective halt to Covid-19.

The entire population of Vò, near Venice, was tested for the virus in February, when medical workers found around three per cent of people had been infected yet only half of them showed symptoms.

The infected were then isolated, and a second round of testing 10 days later found the rate of infection had fallen to 0.3 per cent.

"We were able to contain the outbreak here because we identified and eliminated the 'submerged' infections and isolated them," Andrea Crisanti, an expert on infectious diseases who coordinated the testing, told the UK's Financial Times newspaper.

The town of Vò reported Italy’s first death from the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 2,500 people have now died from the virus in Italy, with over 31,500 confirmed cases in Europe’s worst outbreak.

Earlier this week, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus urged countries to roll out aggressive testing to fight the virus.

"We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test," he told reporters.

"All countries should be able to test all suspected cases, they cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded."

Without testing, cases cannot be isolated and the chain of infection will not be broken, he said.

But outside of the town of Vò, most countries in Europe are only testing potential cases after they have presented symptoms.

In Britain, the country’s health service will only test patients who have arrived at hospital with serious problems.

Public Health England said it would “prioritise tests for people who needed hospital care for pneumonia or acute respiratory illness”.

The policy has prompted doctors in the country’s health service to warn of the implications of the lack of testing for medical workers, who under the current rules have to isolate themselves for 14 days if they or anyone they know show any symptoms.

“The potential implications for self-isolating people without testing are huge,” Iszy Lord, a 25-year-old doctor told the BBC.

“The NHS is busy and overstretched. If we are tested and don’t have the virus, we could be back at work in two to three days rather than two weeks."

Data on the pandemic shows European countries lagging far behind states which have more successfully reduced infection rates.

Figures compiled by research group Our World in Data on Tuesday showed the UK has conducted 50,442 tests, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday announcing the country would seek to conduct 25,000 tests each day.

France has only tested around 11,000 people for the virus as of last week, and Austria, Belgium and Denmark had all conducted fewer than 10,000 tests.

Europe’s testing lags far behind countries like South Korea, which has been praised for its handling of its severe outbreak and has tested more than 285,000 people for the virus.

China’s Guangdong province alone has conducted more than 320,000 tests, and the UAE has now tested 125,000 people.

France’s health ministry on Wednesday said it had increased the country’s capacity to test for the virus from 2,000 tests per day to 2,500 as Europe scrambles to expand testing.

The European Commission is looking to fast-track €164 million in grants for start-ups and businesses working on projects to help with testing and monitoring the virus.

Spain, the fourth worst-hit country in the world after China, Italy and Iran, is struggling with a shortage of test kits.

It has confirmed more than 13,700 cases, but the number of infected people could be much higher.

In Madrid alone, the health authorities said were in touch with more than 20,000 patients by phone, the health ministry's emergencies coordinator Fernando Simon said on Tuesday, describing them as a mix of "confirmed and suspected" cases.

Spanish medics would "run tests on anyone showing symptoms," he said on Wednesday, warning it could "substantially increase" the number of positive cases.

The most common tests for the virus are the so-called “PCR tests” that use swabbed samples from a patient’s nose and throat.

The first tests were developed less than two weeks after the disease was in identified, and are currently part of the protocol recommended by the WHO.