Mozambique not running out of coronavirus tests

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Mozambique not running out of coronavirus tests

5:26 CAT | 09 Oct 2020

in file CoM

Mozambique is not in any imminent danger of running out of reagents for the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests used to detect the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Thursday, Sofia Viegas, the national director of public health laboratories in the National Health Institute (INS), said the Health Ministry currently has sufficient material available for 65,000 PCR tests. That should be enough for 45 days, since on average 1,500 tests are undertaken every day in public health facilities.

By the end of November, she added, the country will receive a further 160,000 PCR tests. 60,000 of these should arrive in the next few days.

This did not mean that the health ministry and the INS felt comfortable about the availability of tests, said Viegas. Indeed “we have never felt comfortable since the beginning of the pandemic”.

“Totally comfortable would mean that we a stock of tests for at least six months”, she added, “and this has never happened, largely because of the availability of the tests on the international market. There is a great deal of competition for tests across the world”.

Viegas said that Mozambique had never been forced to stop testing for the coronavirus because of a lack of reagents, and the health authorities are working to guarantee a stock of tests for at least three months.

Viegas stressed that her figures do not include tests available in private laboratories. The private sector is responsible for between 10 and 15 per cent of the PCR tests held in Mozambique.

The number of tests undertaken in private health units is likely to increase substantially now that the border with South Africa is open again for tourists and business travellers. But the South African authorities demand that anyone entering the country must show a negative PCR test taken within the previous 72 hours.

The Health Ministry will not provide tests for private visits abroad, and so Mozambicans wishing to visit South Africa must pay for tests taken at private laboratories.

Source: AIM