Turnaround time for virus tests must be sped up – experts

The slow turnaround in Covid-19 tests was defeating the purpose of mass screening and testing currently under way, with experts arguing the programme was pointless if results took too long.

Professor Glenda Davison, head of the biomedical sciences department at Cape Peninsula University of Technology and honorary senior lecturer at University of Cape Town, said testing should be used to trace contacts, so quick testing was needed in order to ensure that those who had been in contact with a positive person could be isolated.

“At the moment the turnaround time is very long.

“This is mainly due to a lack of reagents and, of course, bottlenecks.

“I believe that instead of doing broad community screening and testing, we should try and focus on the hot spots and focus testing on the contacts so we can prevent the spread into communities,” she said on Monday.

According to Marc Mendelson, professor of infectious diseases, University of Cape Town, and Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology and director of the MRC Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, early reports by the National Health Laboratory Service indicated that it had the capacity to do 36,000 tests a day by the end of April.

But experts, quoted in a paper published in The Conversation, said this capability had not materialised.

The number of tests received in laboratories exceeded their capacity to deliver results within 12 to 24 hours of samples being taken.

They said in many parts of the country, turnaround time was five to 14 days. Correspondence experts had seen showed some labs with the capacity to do 1,000 tests a day had a backlog of 10,000.

Dr Atiya Mosam, a public health medicine specialist, agreed that South Africa may be reaching a point where contact tracing was not practical as there were no resources to do so for large numbers, and the increased numbers of tests may be delayed.

However, she said to simply stop tracing in lieu of self-reporting was not ideal and did not account for people’s needs to understand the disease, feel safe and not be afraid of stigma attached to contracting Covid-19, which would cause them to not want to report they were infected.

She said people also needed to know how to report the disease, and have access to data and technology in order to report cases.

“So, if we were to adopt a new strategy, we would have to take those factors into account to ensure that it is accessible to the majority of the population,” Mosam added.

Dr Shakira Choonara, an independent public health practitioner and activist, said the country had the strong leadership needed at this time, especially given that a range of experts are behind ensuring the country’s response to Covid-19 was a strong one.

“We are seeing recoveries and this is a positive sign as well,” Choonara said. “However, at the same time, we cannot ignore that the number of positive cases is increasing and so are deaths.

“Lockdown has meant that we are definitely showing signs that we have slowed the spread of the coronavirus,” she said.

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