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Photo: CCiTUB.
 05.05.2020

The UB will run about 52,000 tests to identify people affected by COVID-19

The Catalan Government has approved the governing agreement that gives green light to the second phase of the Orfeu Programme to conduct a massive detection of SARS CoV-2 coronavirus. This second phase  adds the specialised facilities from the University of Barcelona and other Catalan universities and EURECAT, the Technology Centre of Catalonia. 

 

The Government of Catalonia gave the go-ahead to begin Phase 2 of the COVID-19 Mass Screening Programme based on the PCR capacities of the network of knowledge agents in Catalonia (Orfeu Programme). This new phase will incorporate specialised facilities from the University of Barcelona (UB), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) and the EURECAT (through its Centre for Omic Sciences, COS).

This extension adds capacity for 139,000 tests to be carried out at the Catalan universities and which join the 170,000 from the first phase. A total of 309,000 tests are expected for six weeks. The Catalan Government approved a new investment of 1.2 million euros for this second phase.  

The UB will run 52,000 tests in two different blocs: one in the Clinic Campus and the Bellvitge Campus, both from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. About 80 volunteers will take part in this project, mainly from TRS and AdSS, from the Faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences, Biology, and Pharmacy and Food Sciences, and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation. The project also counts on the participation of the staff from the Scientific and Technological Centers of the UB (CCiTUB) who will provide technical support, as well as members from OSSMA and Medical Services of the UB who will look after the safety of the volunteering staff. The profile of the volunteers ranges from professors to hired doctoral students.  

The Barcelona Science Park, one of the nodes in Orfeu Programme

Programa Orfeu aims to provide new diagnostic tests for COVID-19 to complement the capacity of the health system. In the first phase, two nodes of massive detection for coronavirus SARS-CoV-2: one, in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), coordinated by the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) and the Centro Nacional de Ánalisis Genómico (CNAG-CRG), and the other, coordinated by the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in the laboratories of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB). 

► More information: UB website [+]