National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) has stated efforts are underway to increase daily testing capacity in the Maldives to more than 1,000.
As the country prepares to brace for the peak of the spread of COVID-19 towards the end of the month, NEOC is working to increase the testing capacity to identify the depth of the community spread in the country.
Spokesperson of NEOC Mohamed Mabrook Azeez said the testing capacity must be increased to compare the actual community spread against the projections. Mabrook said the administration is working to increase random sampling and increase sample collection from the 28 flu clinics set up in different regions of the country. In this regard, he said the testing capacity will increase once cartridges of the GeneXpert machines arrive on May 16 and help achieve the target of testing 600 individuals a day.
Furthermore, the spokesperson stated the administration is working to bring automated testing machines as the existing machines involve a significant portion of manual processing, in turn limiting the testing capacity. Mabrook also called on the public to use the contact tracing application developed by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). He noted the application does not require an internet connection.