The Ministry of Health is expecting to expedite COVID-19 testing at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory with the use of a recently acquired extraction instrument for its Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine.
This was revealed on Friday by Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony, who said efforts are still ongoing to boost capacity at the laboratory.
Speaking during a COVID-19 update, the minister explained that the government received an extractor from the Government of China and is expecting to put it to use by this week. He also said the government was also able to procure an extractor, which is still to arrive.
“So these samples that would normally take about eight hours for us to process, with an extractor it accelerates the time that you would need to process. So
yesterday we received one as a donation from the Government of China and we have another one that has been shipped that the Government of Guyana has bought,” he explained.
Anthony also stated that that the Health Ministry is also hoping to have point-of-care machines deployed to a number of outlying regions within two weeks. The point-of-care machines, he said, have been available in Guyana for quite some time even as he reiterated that the issue with making use of the machines is that special cartridges have to be procured for them. “That’s another thing that we’re working on so maybe in a week or two we will have some of these machines deployed to some of the outlying regions,” the minister noted
Meanwhile, Anthony also reported that the ministry has moved to acquire another type of machine that was recently certified by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“WHO has just certified a specific type of antigen machine that can give you a very accurate test and it detects the virus itself,” he added. He said the government has already placed orders for the machines with PAHO and added that if they are received within a month’s time it will assist with testing, especially in the outlying regions.
“And I think if we get them, because the price is far cheaper than the PCR test, so it can become very affordable for us to do more tests,” he noted, while adding that currently PCR tests currently cost approximately US$100 per exam and the tests have been done for free for persons who require them.
“But it costs at least US$100, so if we can bring down that cost and do more tests it’s going to be quite helpful,” the minister said.
