The Ministry of Health still has a backlog of about 1,000 COVID-19 tests to be concluded.
This was disclosed by Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony yesterday. He said that this was recently reduced from 1,900. He added that 1,000 tests is still a large number and noted that the backlog is the reason for the delay in persons receiving their test results.
“When we take a sample it still takes a few days before we can actually get back the results, so we’re working to decrease that time,” Dr. Anthony said. To this end he noted that approximately 500 samples were sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to assist in clearing the backlog. The results from those samples are expected to be returned today. “Once we get those results I think we would have cleared a substantial part of our backlog.”