Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 31 March 2021
1215. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health the steps his Department has taken and is taking to prevent the spread of Covid-19 variants of concern in Ireland; if measures such as localised rapid testing and mass testing, akin to those measures implemented in the UK to detect variants, will be introduced here as a matter of priority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17565/21]
View answerThe Government has introduced a range of measures to mitigate the risk of importing variants of concern including mandatory testing and quarantine requirements for passengers arriving from overseas.
Under the current measures, travellers arriving into Ireland from overseas (including from Great Britain) are required to complete a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form, to present evidence of a negative pre-departure RT-PCR test taken within 72 hours of arrival and to observe mandatory quarantine.
Certain countries have been specified as designated states on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer and following consultation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Health (Amendment) Act provides for a system of mandatory quarantine at designated facilities, including for travellers who have been in a designated state within 14 days of arrival to Ireland. Arrivals from all other overseas countries continue to be required to observe mandatory home quarantine.
In Ireland, the national testing strategy for COVID-19 involves testing people who meet the case definition which is currently: those with COVID-19 symptoms; as part of established serial testing programmes including residential care facilities, schools and food production facilities, and following the completion of a Public Health Risk Assessment. In addition, a walk-in service for asymptomatic persons in five areas of high incidence was introduced on 25 March 2021 as part of the HSE’s enhanced COVID-19 testing for local communities. The initial locations have been selected based on local disease prevalence and public health director’s advice, and these locations are subject to change week-on-week. In addition, mass testing is offered in response to outbreaks settings following the completion of a Public Health Risk Assessment.
At the request of the National Public Health Emergency Team, a SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance & Whole Genome Sequencing Working Group has developed recommendations relating to the establishment of a National SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance & Whole Genome Sequencing Programme. The purpose of the recommendations is to ensure early detection and characterisation of emerging variant viruses to define if they are of particular concern and assessing the impact of genetic and antigenic variant viruses for the pandemic and monitoring them over time to guide public health action.
The aim of the Programme is to use whole genome sequencing to inform and enhance the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be achieved through a number of specific objectives including national surveillance of variants, early detection of variants of concern, complex outbreak investigation etc.
Sequencing of random samples from travellers arriving into the country who have presented for testing has been undertaken in Ireland, and all detected samples from those arriving from, or having transited through designated States are sequenced. More broadly, approximately 10% (and at times, up to 15%) of all positive samples in Ireland are currently being sequenced. Work is underway to ensure ongoing standing capacity is available for sequencing of at least 10% of all positive samples.
Considerable work has been undertaken to date to evaluate the use of antigen detection tests in an Irish context and this will continue on an ongoing basis due to the role they can have in the national testing strategy. In particular, further setting-specific ADT validation work continues to be undertaken by the HSE. Antigen testing will not, however, replace the requirement for large scale PCR testing which remains the gold standard for community testing. The HSE has deployed ADTs for use in specific indications in the acute hospital setting, and as part of the response to outbreaks in the community setting in symptomatic vulnerable populations and their close contacts, supported by appropriate clinical governance and operational arrangements. This includes updating the case definition for SARS-CoV-2 to accept notification of positive results from ADTs undertaken in the public health system and reporting of such cases to the COVID Care tracker and to the Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting (CIDR) information system developed to manage the surveillance and control of infectious diseases in Ireland.
I have also set up a group, chaired by the government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Mark Ferguson, to examine the use of rapid tests in the community, and I will be considering the recommendations of this group.
Ireland is pursuing a robust testing strategy under the guidance of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET). On an ongoing basis, NPHET considers and reviews, based on public health risk assessments, how best to target testing to hunt the virus in populations where it’s most likely and where it will do most harm.
