The cost of Covid-19 testing – set at R850 per test by some private laboratories – is being investigated by the Competition Commission after the Council for Medical Schemes raised the issue.
He said the department has also laid a complaint and asked the commission to investigate prices.
While some laboratories have reduced their price, they still remain high. The three main private services listed on the department website as laboratories offering SARS-COV-2 RT-PCR, generally referred to as the Covid-19 PCR test, are Ampath, Lancet and Pathcare. Tests at a public health facility are free of charge, and carried out by the National Health Laboratory Service , the largest diagnostic pathology service in SA.
The NICD report released on Thursday night shows 55.5% of the 51,402 tests conducted the previous day were done in private laboratories. And of the total number of tests carried out since the start of the pandemic — 19,580,433 — 46.3% were done in public healthcare.
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