People going for COVID-19 testing will now be able to know their results in 30 minutes instead of the normal 7 days wait to know their results.
This is all thanks to the World Health Organisation through its presentation of 20,000 Rapid Diagnostic Testing (RDT) Kits to the National Department of Health.
“It now changes the landscape of how we deal with the issue of testing throughout the country. There’s 20,000 (kits) so we can scale up in terms of testing and understanding abit more of about what’s happening in terms of the virus.” This is what the Secretary of Health, Dr Paison Dakulala said when receiving the RDT kits.
“The Value of this tests coming and being available to us, we can do it (test) anywhere, anytime. It is simple. You don’t need a lot of technical expertise to be able to do this test, just teaching to understand the testing process.”
Dr Paison Dakulala further said that with the RDT kits, the COVID-19 testing can be done earlier and quickly respond to the challenges that affect the country during this pandemic.
He further added that because of the quality of this RDT kits and the value that it has in the country depending on the need, they will need to procure this kits later on.
Meanwhile the Gene Xpert tests will still be carried out at the testing centres as well as the RDT kits. Papua New Guinea currently has 761 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 9 COVID-19 related deaths.