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The European Commission will follow the science when it comes to potentially recommending coronavirus tests that are administered anally, a spokesperson said Thursday.
At the regular midday briefing for the press, Austrian journalist Oliver Grimm asked whether the Commission could say if it was planning to include anal swabs in its recommendations for EU-wide COVID testing. Several Chinese cities are already using samples taken from the anus to detect potential COVID-19 infections.
To laughter from the Commission spokespeople and journalists, chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said, “I think we all have a personal interest in this subject,” before passing the question on to his colleague Stefan De Keersmaecker.
De Keersmaecker replied that “we will go where the science takes us. So if science takes us to the butt, we will consider this. But of course I don’t think I can add a lot on this.”
“I don’t think you expect a technical briefing on this,” he added, jokingly.
Later in the press conference, another journalist asked whether the Commission’s comment on following the science meant that such a technique could indeed be recommended in the EU, given that research from China appears to suggest anal swabs may be more accurate in identifying coronavirus infections than classic respiratory tests.
De Keersmaecker replied that testing is a matter for EU countries and the Commission only provides recommendations.
“We indeed rely heavily … on the input from scientists, and so we leave it to the scientific world to see what are the best approaches,” he said.
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