Govt-funded COVID-19 testing to begin shortly – DPR Health Ministry

Donetsk, Oct 15 – DAN. Donetsk Republic hospitals will receive a large batch of novel coronavirus COVID-19 test kits within the next two weeks, DPR Healthcare Minister Alexander Oprischenko said at a press briefing here on Thursday.

“We’ll buy a large amount of ELISA kits (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, ELISA – eds Donetsk News Agency) within the next two weeks,” Oprischenko said. “We have 24 laboratories at hospitals to carry out ELISA tests.  After receiving these kits we’ll be able to run COVID-19 tests for everyone at government expense. The margin of error is nearly the same as for PCR tests” (polymerase chain reaction – eds DAN).

He added that the DPR carries out about 500 COVID-19 tests per day.

“We have two laboratories that can perform 320 PCR tests a day which is not enough.  Another two laboratories in DPR perform commercial ELISA tests. We estimate that the Republic performs some 480 coronavrius infection tests in total per day,” Oprischenko said.

Earlier reports said that 153 new coronavirus infection cases were diagnosed in the DPR over the past 24 hours.*jk

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