UPDATED: CMO: About 52 samples a day sent to CARPHA

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram. -
Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram. -

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram has said approximately 52 tests have been submitted daily to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for the past week.

He made the statement during Thursday's post-Cabinet media briefing.

Parasram said 61 tests were submitted to CARPHA on Wednesday, with an average of 52.5 over the previous five days. He said the majority of tests are accepted by CARPHA, with a little more than 50 rejected over the entire period of testing for various reasons. Among the reasons for rejection are the samples not being adequate, or did not fit the clinical testing definition by CARPHA.

As of Thursday afternoon, 114 people have tested positive, with 1282 tests submitted to CARPHA.

The number of deaths remains at eight.

There are 63 hospitalised patients, 11 at the Caura Hospital and 52 at Couva, with no patients in the ICU and one patient in the high-dependency unit in stable condition.

He said the other 51 are all ambulatory and very stable.

Parasram said people who were diagnosed with covid19 were not allowed to self-isolate at home, but would be quarantined at either Caura or Couva. He said this was best as the healthcare system has the capability or capacity to treat them safely at the institutions, from a medical perspective as well as a safety perspective to isolate the patient.

He addressed concerns by asthmatics who wanted to know how they could distinguish between their symptoms and those of covid19. He said, generally asthmatics did not present with fever, unless there was an underlying infection, but would experience shortness of breath, wheezing, fatigue, exercise intolerance. He said most asthmatics know what their signs and symptoms are.

Parasram said he has received evidence there has been a decrease in the number of people presenting with respiratory illnesses over the last week. He also said he had been looking at the number of deaths, as is usual during an epidemic, and there had been no increase in deaths related to respiratory illness over the same period last year.

He said he had teamed up with PAHO, CARPHA and the Trinidad Public Health Lab to install the new machines. He said It is only when the machine starts to be used that samples can be sent to PAHO's virology department and CARPHA for technical oversight to determine whether the tests were accurate. He said he could not give a date when this would happen. The Health Minister said laboratory technicians were being trained to use the new machines.

Minister Deyalsingh said he has received the report from the Chairman of the Eastern Regional Health Authority regarding the Sangre Grande step-down facility. He said he will request additional information of the Chairman once the ministry’s legal department has read the report.

The minister reiterated that pharmacies should not be selling N95 masks as those were reserved for frontline healthcare workers. He said pharmacies should be responsible in their selling and not raise their prices.

Parasram said different healthcare workers are given different categories of masks depending on the policy at the different institutions. He said N95 masks are for a specific category of workers that do certain procedures, including intubation and testing, while surgical masks are used for a wide group of healthcare workers, as well as cone masks. Deyalsingh said the RHAs all have sewing departments and the ministry had given them material to sew their own masks to distribute to workers.

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"UPDATED: CMO: About 52 samples a day sent to CARPHA"

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