News
Over 4,000 test samples ‘unprocessed’ on June 8 & 9, while health official says backlog is “minimum”
With controversy riddling the Covid-19 testing programme and many charging that there was inadequate testing along with a lag-time for results to be issued, the Sunday Times contacted the Health Ministry’s Deputy Director-General (Laboratory Services), Dr Sudath Dharmaratne for some answers.
When asked how many RT-PCR tests are being done per day currently, he spoke only of the numbers performed in April and May. “The tests done per day depend on demand. If there is an increase in demand, we cater to that increase. In April, there was a reduction in testing (350,000 tests) because there was not much demand. There were no travel restrictions and it led to a third wave, and in May, over 700,000 tests were carried out.”
The Health Promotion Bureau, meanwhile, recorded that 17,096 tests had been performed on Tuesday (June 8).
Dr Dharmaratne said the government sector laboratories can carry out around 25,000 tests per day, but they are not getting adequate samples. This maybe due to travel restrictions.
He gave the following breakdown of the 39 laboratories conducting RT-PCR testing:
- 21 state labs
- 9 private labs
- 7 university labs
- 2 army labs managed by the Kotelawala Defence University (KDU)
With regard to the backlog of untested samples, he said that it is at a “minimum” now. They have extended the capacity and it would arise only if there is an issue such as a machine breakdown.
A look at the ‘Performance of Covid-19 PCR Centres Daily Report’ by the Sunday Times found that on June 8, the ‘unprocessed’ samples were 4,221 and on June 9, they were 4,679.