Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will conduct pool tests on Covid-19, which, according to Health and Finance Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra, has increased the province's capacity three to five times.
Jhagra said on Friday that the Covid-19 testing lab at Khyber Medical University (SME) is now allowed to conduct pool tests.
“After successfully conducting 27 pool tests with 100-piece congruence, the flagship of the SMP, the KP coronavirus testing laboratory, has been commissioned to perform pool testing - suitable for large, low-incidence groups. theoretically increase test capacity 3-5 times, "he said in a tweet.
KP Corona Virus scorecard April 23.
— Taimur Khan Jhagra (@Jhagra) April 24, 2020
KP conducted 1146 tests, its highest yet. KMU alone conducted a record 902 tests across 3 24-7 shifts.
Breakdown as follows:
- 902 KMU
- 106 Other KP public sector labs
- 34 NIH
- 104 Pvt sector labs
- 91% govt paid tests
- 9% Pvt sector pic.twitter.com/ZMpqD2VZ5y
He summarized the total number of tests performed so far in the province and said, “KP has performed 1,146 tests, the highest to date [based on available data to April 23]. Only SMEs performed a record 902 tests in three rounds. "
The provincial minister explained the method, saying that pool tests require multiple tests and a combined test.
“In Germany and other European countries, pool tests are being carried out for population surveys in areas with little occurrence.
"If you run three, five, ten tests with this theory and the results are negative, you can exclude this [population] pool and declare ten more negative."
But if one of the cases is positive, try all the tests individually, he said.
“There is an advantage [with this method]: for example, an airplane with 200 passengers had arrived from Dubai and one person had tested positive.
“If you had run 40 [test] pools, a pool would have tested positive. From this pool, you would have retested the five people [to confirm their diagnosis] and completed 200 tests faster. "
