A few days after the declaration of the state of alarm for the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of researchers from the UPV/EHU, together with researchers from other research centers, developed a new procedure for performing the PCR test. They managed to develop it in record time, putting many hours of work and organizing themselves in auzolan. As announced on April 8 in the journal Campus of the UPV/EHU, the specificity of this procedure is 100% and the sensitivity is 92%. In addition, it is much cheaper than the commercial kits used, at a cost of approximately EUR 15 per test. A week later, the UPV/EHU was validated by the Carlos III Health Institute for conducting these tests. According to the researchers, this new procedure would allow the UPV/EHU to perform between 500 and 1000 daily tests and, coordinated by all CAV laboratories with equipment for the development of PCR, it would be possible to perform 10,000 daily tests.

From that moment on, a situation began that would have a surreal touch, if we did not perceive the interests behind it. It is clear that doing the tests massively from the UPV/EHU would strengthen the centrality of the public university and, as we have seen in recent years, not everyone is in favour of it. On the other hand, we must not forget that the tests offer private initiative a great opportunity to do business, and doing so at low prices from the public sector would greatly disrupt this possibility. From the outset, the Basque Government's Department of Health devalued this initiative and tried to remove it. The contempt for this opportunity, which is so useful in an emergency situation like this, caused discomfort among the population, even in the community of the UPV/EHU. As a result, a declaration https://testmasiboenalde.wordpress.com/ was made public on 25 April, which received over 1,000 accessions one week among faculty, researchers and administration and service staff of the UPV/EHU.

A few days later, the UPV/EHU and Osakidetza signed a collaboration agreement for the performance of the PCR test, which can be interpreted as a response to astonishment at the non-use of the capacity of the UPV/EHU and the media pressure generated by this public statement. And that is that, after the agreement, the matter has disappeared from the media. In any case, two elements must be taken into account. On the one hand, the participation of the UPV/EHU was limited to the prevalence research carried out by the Ministry of Health, which provided for the testing of 5,000 people. Furthermore, the obstacles and delays encountered since then have been continuous: Delays in the clinical validation that Osakidetza has to give, samples that do not come from Osakidetza, problems in the pilot tests, delays in the medical examination of the volunteers and, once performed, continue waiting for the sampling… In this regard and to the question of how many tests have been performed, the government team of the UPV/EHU has not given a concrete answer. Over time, it is clear that the agreement signed between the UPV/EHU and Osakidetza was a bluff to remove this uncomfortable issue from the media. Two months later, the potential of this initiative has been kept to a minimum. In a diligent society this would be a scandal.

The team that developed the procedure for conducting the PCR tests made a broad offer for public institutions to use them for the performance of massive tests in society. As has been explained, what happened since then has shown us obscure interests and a clear waste of resources and public sector capacities. If there are technical procedures and means, there are validations and human resources (testing technicians and health personnel), why have you refused to use this option? This test detects infected people at the time, but simply detecting asymptomatic individuals would be a clear step forward for both the environment of these people and for controlling the pandemic. And being placed in a test program at regular intervals, the risk of contagion would be greatly reduced. In this sense, the LAB syndicate also called for mass tests for the entire population, setting priorities for starting work as well. If some groups have been tested (health service personnel, residential staff, fishermen…), why not use the resources of the public university to protect other groups and people? Why have you decided to sweep away this opportunity by rejecting this recourse to society?

Political leaders have denied the ability of the UPV/EHU to address society, and the UPV/EHU government team has accepted it with kindness. An unbeatable opportunity has been lost for public universities to respond to the urgent needs of society, to show the character of being at the service of a society that is so often repeated and to highlight the work carried out by the researchers of the UPV/EHU. We are often marked by knowledge transfer as one of the most important lines of the university. On this occasion, the transfer to society has been seriously polluted. These kinds of situations lead us to reflect on where the supposed autonomy of the public university remains, that famous motto “Eman ta zabal zazu”. They have to lead us to rethink which public universities we want and need.

* Maite Urtiaga, Iñaki Etaio, Gabi Elkoroaristizabal, Arantza Gutiérrez

Trade union section LAB at the UPV/EHU