Lab technicians at the Doctor Defilló National Laboratory say that around 20,000 Covid-19 samples for tests have not been processed because of lack of inputs and staff. The lab is the government’s main Covid-19 testing facility.
The Dominican Association of Bioanalysts (Codobio) denounced that staff at the lab is only 30. These work in two shifts of up to 14 hours, seven days a week, but have not been able to anywhere keep up with the demand for tests.
The spokesperson for Codobio says that the staff is exhausted. Around 3,000 to 3,200 samples daily are received from all over the country, when the center’s processing capacity is only 1,200 samples per day.
Most of the PCR tests in the Dominican Republic are being carried out at private labs. The tests carried out at the Laboratorio Nacional Dr. Defillo are free to the general public.
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El Dia
6 August 2020