In solidarity with medical teams in Belgium and around the world, UNamur has developed an alternative Covid-19 testing technique that has provided an answer to the worldwide shortage of reagents normally used for PCR analysis. The SANA protocol has led to an increase in daily testing, with the creation of several platforms to support hospitals in Wallonia and Brussels. SANA means a team of volunteer scientists, 15,000 screening tests between March and June 2020, a protocol distributed in open access in 28 countries on 5 continents, and unhoped-for support for homes, centers for the disabled and dialysis patients in the Namur region.

The SANA laboratory was set up by Professor Benoît Muylkens (URVI, Institut Narilis) and his team in collaboration with numerous volunteers. Several research projects were subsequently carried out by different teams within the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science.

Thanks to your donations, UNamur has been able to finance essential laboratory equipment for screening and research projects on a virus as contagious as SARS-CoV-2: Laminar flow hoods, autoclaves, extraction robots... Thanks to the purchase of a 3D printer, UNamur has set up swab prototypes adapted to the morphology of children and teenagers, and has been able to grant the funding needed to carry out several research projects to better understand the disease, improve its diagnosis in a simple, safe and rapid way, and enable better management of patients suffering from long or severe forms of the disease.