Now that the COVID-19 testing backlog has been cleared and the National Public Health Reference Laboratory (NPHRL) has boosted its capacity to process samples, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony has said government will no longer be proceeding with its planned testing arrangements with the United States and Brazil although samples will still be sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to ensure that results are accurate.
“We are using CARPHA as a quality control for the testing that we are doing here at the Public Health Reference lab. So for x amount of samples that we do in Guyana, we will take some of it and send it off to CARPHA to validate whatever results we are getting here,” Anthony said during a COVID-19 update that was released yesterday.