SA has the capacity to conduct 25,000 Covid-19 tests a day, enough to meet the anticipated demand generated by the government’s community screening programme, Business for SA said on Tuesday.
More than 10,000 field workers have been deployed by the government to screen and refer patients for testing for the highly contagious Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus, as part of its strategy for trying to slow community transmission of disease. The illness has swept around the globe in less than four months, sickening more than 1.94-million people and killing close to 20,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
“Our sense is that the country is equipped from a capacity and test kit point of view to carry out 25,000 tests a day,” said the head of BSAs’ healthcare workgroup, Stavros Nicolaou, who is also Aspen Pharmacare’s executive for strategic trade.