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Mass Covid-19 testing at Swedish university to investigate infection rate

Starting this week, 20,000 people will be mass tested for Covid-19 in the northern Swedish city of Umeå.

Published: 31 August 2020 15:50 CEST
Mass Covid-19 testing at Swedish university to investigate infection rate
A lab engineer prepares a Covid-19 test. File photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

The study at Umeå University has been organised to investigate how ordinary teaching on university campuses affects the spread of infection.

Over two weeks, 20,000 students and university employees will be tested twice – making it Sweden's largest such test so far. The Public Health Agency, National Pandemic Centre, and Swedish army will assist in carrying out the tests.

“It's a big experiment,” Anders Johansson, a researcher specialising in infectious diseases, told Swedish television.

“We test in the first week to see how many have the infection, and then when everyone meets a week later we test how many have caught it.”

As well as being tested twice using self-tests, participants will also be able to fill out optional questionnaires about their symptoms. Anyone with symptoms consistent with coronavirus can take the test at home and have it collected, so that they can follow public health advice to avoid leaving home if sick.

The results will be interesting given the fact that the infection rate has been rising in many countries as they continue opening up society. In Sweden, although there was never a lockdown of the kind seen in most other places, there are concerns about what the autumn will mean for the development of the disease as people return to their places of work and study.

Universities and schools for over-16s switched to remote learning in late March, and although they have been given the green light to welcome students back to campus for the autumn term, many are continuing to offer mostly online learning.

In many countries including Sweden, the disease is now mostly seen to be spreading among young people. 

Although young healthy people are typically less likely to get seriously ill from the coronavirus, one concern is that if the virus spreads among this group it will then be passed on to the more vulnerable members of the population.

The Public Health Agency has said that the results of the Umeå tests could be used “among other things, to give a basis for targeted measures, analysis and modelling”.

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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