Lancet Laboratories say unnecessary testing for coronavirus has resulted in a backlog at their testing sites. They say unnecessary tests have had an impact on the turnaround times for urgent matters that require results at healthcare facilities.
There is currently a backlog of almost 20 000 swaps.
“What the backlog means is that we can’t effectively reach the turnaround times for the tests that are actually needed for the sick people and health care workers. Our turnaround time is up to four days now and that is actually a useless test,” says Lancet Laboratories Clinical Virologist Eftyhia Vardas.
She says that they are getting a lot of requests from people outside the health care sector. “So, a lot of people that are worried that there might have had exposure and I guess that the worry is real. We are entering a community-based epidemic at the moment but the testing has to be kept now directed to health care workers and those people that are actually are sick and in hospitals and have had high-risk contacts.”
In the video below, Lancet Laboratories Clinical Virologist Eftyhia Vardas says other private laboratories are inundated with requests for tests:
South Africa has a total of 168 061 COVID-19 cases. More than one million seven hundred thousand tests have been completed.
