Coronavirus, Puglia requisitioned machinery for the Veneto. Zaia: “I’m going to get them.” Then the deal

An innovative technology to speed up the diagnosis of coronavirus positivity-negativity has risked becoming a political case. Indeed, for a few days it was. Between Puglia and Veneto. The positive news is that the Apulian company Masmec, by automating the extraction of RNA from the swabs, has speeded up the diagnosis. The casus belliInstead, it stems from the fact that the Apulian company, with Menarini, sold the machinery to Veneto. For this reason, the Apulian governor Michele Emiliano last April 1, with an ordinance, decided to requisition the two machines destined for the Northern region «in consideration of the low number of daily analyzes that can be carried out in Puglia with the equipment currently supplied to the laboratories »and to the fact that the innovative technology was created by Masmec« also thanks to the collaboration of the Puglia Region ». Too few, therefore, for Emiliano, the thousand swabs a day that arrived in Puglia to ascertain the coronavirus infection, for a total that, since the beginning of the emergency, has reached 16,654 tests and with 2,077 Apulian results positive. But as soon as I heard the news, the governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, went on a rampage: «If they were meant for us, I will go and take them in person. We will reconstruct what happened – he says – and we will understand who they were dedicated to “.

The achievement of the agreement

The requisition, to date, had not yet been carried out by the carabinieri because, as Emiliano himself pointed out, “faced with the legitimate needs of Puglia, Menarini (which produces the reagents) and the Masmec company immediately made efforts to find the adequate solution. And therefore the execution of the measure has not yet taken place because an agreement is being reached “. In fact, it arrived in the afternoon of April 3 thanks to two machines also destined for the Foggia laboratories. Solution that avoided a political case between Puglia and Veneto on the strange history of machinery federalism. In fact, in the provision signed by Emiliano it was pointed out that in Puglia it is not possible to do more than a thousand analyzes against the 6 thousand carried out in other areas of Italy which “obviously have the availability of machines and reagents”. Emiliano also stressed “the unfair distribution of machines and reagents on the national territory” which “clearly damages the right to health of the Apulian citizens as the other Regions have procured more machines and more reagents in the initial phase of the epidemic, when the Puglia was not involved at all “. Everything, however, clarified with a phone call from Emiliano to Zaia, with which he communicated to him the agreement found with the supplier companies that have guaranteed that machinery and reagents for making tampons will arrive both in Puglia and in Veneto in the quantities and on schedule. “Apulian technology and research carried out in recent years thanks to funding from the Puglia Region in the factory that makes the machinery – explained Emiliano – and the validations of these machines carried out by the Institute of Hygiene of the University of Bari at the Policlinico di Bari will allow Puglia and Veneto to increase the number of swabs made “.