It is claimed that someone with symptoms of Covid-19 could have the results of a swab test back within 24 hours.
An Irish collaboration has secured 19 machines and chemical reagents from China which could allow for a rollout of a national rapid testing facility for Covid-19 in Ireland by early next month.
Speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke on Monday, Dr Paddy Mallon, consultant in infectious diseases at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, expressed the hope that, in coordination with the HSE, the supplies could be put in place by early May to provide swab test results for Covid-19 within 24 hours.
Dr Mallon said that the machinery and chemicals have been flown in from a trusted supplier in China using the contacts of his colleague, Dr. Paul O’Brien of Consulting Group Chemlinked, who trained as a doctor in China and is an expert on Chinese regulatory policy.
On Sunday, the HSE said that the backlog of testing for Covid-19 had been eliminated completely. There are currently a total of 27 labs carrying out Covid-19 testing at a rate of about 1,000 tests per day, approximately 40% of which are carried out in Germany.
Speaking to Sean O’Rourke, Dr. Paul O’Brien claimed that the deal to secure machinery and chemical reagents from China means it will be possible to carry out 100,000 tests a week in Ireland.
Once coordination is managed properly, Dr. Paddy Mallon said, it is possible that someone who wakes up with symptoms on a Monday morning could undergo a swab test and, using the machinery imported from China, have the results back within 24 hours.
It would be up to the HSE, Mallon said, to look after the distribution of the machines and chemical reagents to where they are most needed in Ireland.
Mallon said the supplies from China will help Ireland “test its way out of the pandemic” while the deal to bring PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) machines and reagents from China has been described as “fantastic” by Dr. Oisin O Connell, Respiratory Consultant in the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork.
This deal, O’Connell said, “will massively increase our test capacity” and added that it “bypasses a number of the issues other countries in the EU and the USA are facing and will allow us to get our economy back earlier through earlier tracking and tracing and rapid turnaround of tests”.
Responding to concerns about the quality of the products in light of issues with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that arrived from China recently, meanwhile, Dr. Paul O’Brien said that the narrative on that equipment was “a bit skewed” and that most of the problems that arose were regulatory.
You can listen to the conversation on Today with Sean O’Rourke in full here.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
