Part of the staff working in the "Genetics of Mitochondrial Diseases" team at the IRCAN is part of the Medical Genetics Service from the University Hospital Center (CHU)  in Nice.

With the implementation of the "white plan", this service was reorganized to meet 2 objectives (i) to facilitate the diagnosis and management of COVID-19 patients and (ii) to maintain the care offered to sensitive patients that are taken care of by the department (pregnant women and children/adults with genetic diseases).

Within the laboratory, every effort has been made to fully support and increase the capacity of the virology laboratory of the CHU in terms of diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR (validation of procedures on our equipment, redeployment of staff, etc.).

Currently, 4 technicians from the genetics service are redeployed on COVID-19 activities. The genetics activities (particularly for prenatal diagnosis) have also been fully maintained.

At the clinical level, the majority of consultations (other than emergency) have been reorganized in the form of tele-consultations. Establishing recommendations for the management of patients with rare diseases that are also COVID-19 positive, was carried out in collaboration with the Rare Disease Health Systems.

A big thanks to the entire IRCAN staff who continued to work, particularly for the maintenance of the collections and at the administrative level, to enable us to resume research activities under the best possible conditions, as soon as possible!