Covid19 rapid test kits coming to Tobago

The THA Division of Health, Wellness and Family Protections is actively looking at increasing covid19testing capacity through procuring rapid test kits as the division will push towards doing more of the antigen testing.

Speaking on TV6’s Morning Edition on Friday, Secretary of the Division Dr Faith BYisrael said she has already spoken with a few worldwide affiliates.

“I already started reaching out to some of our international partners to see if we can get additional testing kits donated. The answer thus far is yes. We now just have to wait for when we can get them in and when we can get them in quickly.”

She said this is the rapid test and not necessarily the PCR test.

“The world is kind of moving away from doing the PCR test, because they are so expensive, and because the numbers are so large, it just is unrealistic to think that we could do the PCR test for every single person who we think is infected.”

She said that means the County Medical Officer of Health’s (CMOH) office will definitely need more staff.

“That is what we’ve started doing again. I’ve just agreed to have a batch of enrolled nursing assistants, who just graduated, they just did the exam last week." She said they will work with the CMOH’s office so that she has more resources to make calls and contacts and ensure people "know their status and know what they should do and that kind of thing.”

This, she said, should be rolled out soon.