As flu season looms amid the coronavirus epidemic, labs across Finland are scrambling to develop a single test kit that can diagnose both influenza and coronavirus at the same time.
Such a test would help to speed up diagnoses of both illnesses and also help patients get the right treatment more quickly. Rapid testing and correct diagnosis is particularly important in cases when patients' respiratory symptoms are severe and require hospitalisation.
Flu season usually starts in November, but Finland's newly-formed habits of social distancing, improved hand hygiene, and the use of face masks may affect when the season actually begins, how long it lasts, as well as its intensity.
Tampere-based FimLab, which serves a wide region in southern, central and western Finland, has confirmed a new kit that can identify novel coronavirus as well as influenza types A and B.
Fimlab's chief physician, Tapio Seiskari, said the combined test has been found to work properly.
He said rolling it out for general use still needs some more work but noted that there's no reason to think it won't be ready once flu season starts.
Across the country
FimLab is owned by the municipalities of Pirkanmaa, Central Finland, Vaasa and the Kanta-Häme hospital district and the Päijät-Häme welfare association, and has more than 100 lab offices in the area.
Meanwhile HUSLab, in southern Finland's Helsinki University hospital district (HUS), is also looking for combination test kits, for both regular and rapid analyses, according to HUS chief director Maija Lappalainen.
HUSLab has access to a combined mass test, but its functionality in the district has not yet been confirmed, she said.
Further north, NordLab is also seeking combination tests. NordLab is owned by the hospital districts of Lapland, municipalities in western and northern Ostrobothnia, the Kainuu social and health care municipalities as well as Soite, the Central Ostrobothnia Joint Municipal Authority for Social and Health Services.