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Gov’t eyes 1,000 tests a day

Published:Wednesday | April 22, 2020 | 12:28 AMJason Cross/Gleaner Writer
Medical technicians (from left) Lychoy Roomes, Ndidi Ovundah and Shanique Goldson demonstrate the usage of the COBAS 6800 at the official handover at the National Public Health Laboratory in Kingston on Tuesday. The machine will be used to test for COVID-19 and can assess 384 samples every eight hours.
Kenyon Hemans/Photographer
Medical technicians (from left) Lychoy Roomes, Ndidi Ovundah and Shanique Goldson demonstrate the usage of the COBAS 6800 at the official handover at the National Public Health Laboratory in Kingston on Tuesday. The machine will be used to test for COVID-19 and can assess 384 samples every eight hours.

Yesterday’s commissioning of a high-tech machine at the National Public Health Laboratory in Kingston is expected to expand Jamaica’s capacity for testing for the new coronavirus amid criticism that low assessments were giving a false picture of the scale of COVID-19 here.

Experts in the health ministry have confirmed that there has been a delay in getting samples back from the field quickly enough to capture a real-time picture of the pandemic’s impact in Jamaica.

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton revealed yesterday that the COBAS technology represented “positive development” and could test 384 samples over each eight-hour shift every day.

The lab usually runs two eight-hour shifts per day, which means it could conduct 768 tests on a regular day.

However, Tufton said that as demand for testing rose, especially after a surge in cases linked to clustering at the Alorica call centre in Portmore, “we could go over 1, 000 on a particular day.”

The ministry confirmed 10 new cases of COVID-19 in Jamaica yesterday, bringing the total to 233.

Of the 10 new cases, five accounted for coronavirus response employees working at the Ministry of Health & Wellness, after an aide of Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan tested positive last Thursday.

Bryan is under 14-day self-­quarantine.

So far, 1,936 samples have been tested. Eight cases are pending.

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie told journalists yesterday that over the past week, the ministry had been under pressure to boost testing capacity, revealing that COVID-19 test samples were beginning to accumulate.

The Ministry of Health & Wellness has been receiving samples from patients at health centres and hospitals “with any kind of respiratory illness,” the CMO said.

“We have also been using mobile teams that are helping health departments with sampling. Within the last week, we have been under pressure with the amount of samples coming out of the workplace cluster [Alorica] that we have in St Catherine.

“This will help to clear all those cases and get results quickly. In some of the [health] regions, there has been delay in getting test results, but with this, we hope to complete these results in another day or two,” Bisasor-McKenzie said.

Alorica, which has a workforce of almost 800, accounts for about half of Jamaica’s positive numbers.

In the meantime, Tufton told The Gleaner yesterday that test samples have been taken from an elderly man with a travel history who fell ill and died at the Mandeville Hospital on Monday to evaluate whether his death may be linked to COVID-19.

Six persons have died from the disease locally.