USP diagnoses Covid-19 for agribusiness workers

The “Luiz de Queiroz” Higher School of Agriculture (Esalq) and the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (Cena), both at the University of São Paulo (USP), in Piracicaba (SP), carry out COVID-19 diagnoses on agricultural workers. agribusiness, mainly food production and distribution lines.

The partnership between Esalq and Cena was made possible by the Luiz de Queiroz Agricultural Studies Foundation (Fealq).

The campaign, called “Fealq Pela Vida”, also raises funds for examinations of patients in the public health network, involving city halls and other units of USP and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) Pecuária Sudeste.

With the capacity to carry out up to 570 daily tests in three laboratories, the objective of the initiative is to contribute to the safety of people working in the sector and guarantee supply to the entire population, in addition to helping to alleviate the demand for tests in the public network.

So that educational and research institutions can offer the service to the private sector, associations and city halls, Fealq formalizes and guarantees the legality of contracts between laboratories and organizations that need the diagnoses.

COVID-19 tests are available in two ways. One of them is the contracting of the “Solidarity Test”, a modality in which the interested organization acquires the necessary quantity of diagnoses for its employees and donates a percentage for testing patients from the public network, selected by the health departments of the indicated municipalities.

The other way to collaborate is by donating resources to Fealq, a non-profit entity, which transfers them to the laboratories. The donor will also be able to direct their contribution to one of the participating institutions.

More details about the two forms of collaboration via campaign website.