Surveillance programme for new Covid-19 variants approved
Keystone / Sebastian Gollnow
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has approved the establishment of a national genomic surveillance programme for new Covid-19 variants.
The nationwide surveillance programme will help to monitor the evolution of the various variants and to assess the risk of the emergence of vaccine-resistant strains, the FOPH said on Friday.
Nearly 2,000 positive samples will be tested each week, a number that is likely to change depending on the epidemiological situation. The objective is to rapidly identify the variants of concern, their possible importation by travellers and their distribution throughout the country.
The programme, which also includes wastewater surveillance, is scheduled to run until March 31, 2022.
The Swiss National reference laboratory for emerging viral infections, the Federal Institutes of Technology, other university and private laboratories, the NextStrain platform and the Covid-19 scientific task force are collaborating on the project.
The strategy is based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the project is financed by the FOPH.
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