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COVID-19 Situation – Testing
COVID-19 testing at the Department of Dermatology UHZ The laboratory of the UHZ Department of Dermatology temporarily became the SARS-CoV-2 testing laboratory of the UHZ. In March 2020, the UZH faced an emergency situation as hardly any SARS-CoV-2 tests were available. In mid-March, the hospital management gave the Dermatology Clinic laboratory the task of establishing a SARSCoV-2 testing center. Under the direction of Prof. Mitch Levesque, (research group leader) and PD Philipp Bosshard, (laboratory manager FAMH of the accredited routine laboratories), the team set to work under high pressure; five RNA extraction methods and four PCR methods were evaluated in parallel. After only 10 days, we were able to successfully test the first samples. In addition, we produced our own swab sets and set up all the logistics up to reporting the results to the FOPH. From March to October, the COVID-19 team from the UHZ Department of Dermatology performed over 20,000 SARS-CoV-2 PCRs for the UHZ, with about 3% being positive (see figure). The team worked very hard, and thanks to evening and weekend services the results could be reported within 24 hours in most cases. Another highlight was when we helped the city of Zurich by swabbing all the residents of a nursing home on site with a mobile team, and then tested them in the laboratory.
Since October 12 testing has been performed in the Department for Immunology on a new, fully automated Cobas6800 machine. We are proud that our laboratory was able to help the UHZ and thus many patients in this exceptional situation.
Daily Meeting Team Physicians – out door due to COVID-19-restrictions, Summer 2020
Samples by Day
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