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Improved COVID-19 testing will help identify hotspots: Expert

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Senior researcher at the CSIR, Doctor Ridhwaan Suliman, has stressed the importance of improved testing for coronavirus in South Africa, saying this will help identify hotspot areas across the country and ultimately combat the virus.

South Africa has seen an 11% decline in daily new cases over the past week, however Suliman warns that more robust testing is necessary to isolate any further outbreaks.

He attributes the decline in the number of daily new cases to the adjusted level three lockdown regulations and improved testing.

Suliman says, “If you look nationally, currently we seeing that the number of daily new tests is just over 62 000 – that continues to increase at the end of the festive period  – it’s 5% higher compared to a week ago and this is good news. We need to test more wisely, firstly because we need to understand how widespread the infection is. Testing allows us to identify hotspot areas and to also pick up where there are resurgence levels and to pick up any super spreading events and cluster outbreaks. Increased testing overall is a useful tool to combat the virus.

False negative tests

Meanwhile, Specialist Family Physician, Dr Marina Klokke has warned of false negative COVID-19 tests.

In the audio below, she says the false negative test rate is about 30%.

INFOGRAPHIC: COVID-19 Statistics in SA:

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