María Iglesias-Caballero
Virologist at the Reference Laboratory for Influenza and Respiratory Viruses of the National Microbiology Centre - Carlos III Health Institute
We have requested serum from this patient because sometimes, as we use very sensitive diagnostic techniques, the cases are not always true infections. Serum has been requested to confirm this. That is pending.
The samples we have available have been sent to a WHO centre, so everything is perfectly coordinated within the network. It is true that this is a peculiar case, but it is under control. Catalonia is one of the autonomous communities that does very well in surveillance, sequencing a lot, and this is the only case we have.
So we believe that if there really were sustained circulation, we would have detected it, and that is not the case. But even so, what we can seriously attest to is that we are monitoring it. We have coordination from the autonomous community, central government, Europe and internationally.