Govt to introduce antigen testing

IN THE next few weeks, the Ministry of Health will introduce antigen testing in its fight against covid19. Dr Naresh Nandram, Principal Medical Officer of Epidemiology made the announcement at the Health Ministry’s virtual media conference on Wednesday morning.

“PCR testing does remain the gold standard. However, there are several advantages to antigen testing and these include the fact that it’s a lot cheaper and the results are available a lot quicker. And in so doing, management of the patient can be expedited.”

He said the ministry had 15 Standard F200 machines and 150,000 test cartridges. In the first phase, machines would be placed in all general hospitals, and in the second phase, in District Health Facilities.

Also, 40,000 Standard Q tests would be distributed to smaller health facilities, rural areas and to outreach programmes. Results could be determined in 15 to 30 minutes.

He said the ministry had to validate the tests before putting them to use to ensure the safety of staff and the public, as well as to ensure the results were reliable, test the conditions in which the tests would be reliable, and determine the limitations of the tests.

Chief Medical Officer, Roshan Parasram, pointed out that the advised use was for people with symptoms, which is in line with the national policy.

He also gave an update on the distribution of active cases. He said out of 462, there were none in Tobago. However, St George East accounted for 19.8 per cent, St George Central – 17.8 per cent, Victoria – 17.5 per cent, Caroni – 15.1 per cent, St David/St Andrew – 12.5 per cent, St George West – 8.6 per cent, St Patrick – 6 per cent, and Nariva/Mayaro – 2.6 per cent.

He said one of the highest concentrations of cases was in Sangre Grande but there has been a reduction in the size of the cluster over the past few weeks due to successful contact tracing.

According to Parasram, there was no local evidence that having more than one comorbidity would increase the health risk of covid19, however, it was a possibility. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh added that 31 per cent of fatalities had an overlap of diabetes and hypertension.

Parasram also noted that 88 people from the Prison system, both officers and inmates were isolated, and 18 were at the Claxton Bay Correctional Facility in step down isolation.