Public Health Minister now says that the government has contracted for 53,300 PCR coronavirus diagnostic tests. During the coronavirus press conference on 14 April 2020, Dr. Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas says these have been arriving little by little. During the previous press conference, he had stated that all the PCR tests in use had been donated by the OMS, CDC or private companies.
He said of the 53,300, some 28,800 tests had been purchased from Roche, 9,500 from Bioanalitica. He said on average around 614 tests are carried out per day.
He understands the Department of Epidemiology will soon add 15,310 rapid response blood tests to the statistics. Dr. Sánchez Cárdenas also says that cases that are being diagnoses with the use of X-ray machines and tomography scanners and clinical observations will also be added to the total of cases in the country once the software used for the official statistics is updated.
As of bulletin 26, only 10,448 PCR tests had been carried out since the first case was detected on 1 March 2020.
Dr. Sánchez Cárdenas says that once the additional cases are included in the statistical records , the medical authorities and epidemiologists will have a better founded opinion on at what stage the Dominican Republic is in regards to the epidemic.
Read more in Spanish:
El Dia
15 April 2020