The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Executive Director of the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), Prof. Pontiano Kaleebu has said the methods they use to test the coronavirus (COVID -19) are the same as those used for testing hepatitis B and HIV.
Prof. Kaleebu’s assertion dispels fears among part of the public thinking of a possibility of having inaccurate tests for the virus.
He said on Thursday that with such technique which they have long used cannot give them wrong results because the system has controls which can alert the lab technician if what they are doing is proper or not.
He said that last week they received a batch of 20,000 test kits from different places some from China and others from the World Health Organization, but they are all pretested for accuracy before being used.
While previously they have been using only kits approved by the World Health Organisation or the American Food and Drug Administration, but because of the emergency at hand and the demand worldwide, Kaleebu says at times they use kits which have not gone through the normal approvals but emergency approvals. He however noted that among the tests that they have so far done, there have been problematic ones especially those picked from the border points.
The Ministry of Health on Thursday announced that all the 1015 people under institutional quarantine will under go tests even if they don’t show any symptoms.
Kaleebu says they are currently taking an inventory of what other laboratories in the country have in place and that should they get overwhelmed by these numbers, some of the samples will be transferred.
Addressing a press on Thursday, Minister of Health Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng said for fear of the confusion that can come with multiple laboratories conducting tests, only UVRI will continue conducting tests.
Each day ever since the outbreak was declared in Uganda three weeks ago, UVRI conducts between 50 and 150 tests.
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