Amidst complaints over a lag in the release of COVID-19 test results, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony on Friday stated that plans are underway to automate Guyana’s testing for COVID-19, thereby boosting its capacity, but a number of things must be put in place.
In an interview with Stabroek News, Dr Anthony informed that the National Public Health Reference Laboratory currently has one Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine, which is not an automatic machine, and therefore takes a much longer time to process samples that are submitted.
“What we are trying to do now is to automate that process”, Dr Anthony said, while explaining that there are different types of PCR machines that would speed up the testing time. The health ministry, he said, is currently in the process of procuring automatic PCR machines. The automatic machines are being used in various international airports and can process approximately 96 tests within an hour.
