The National Health Services Laboratory still has a backlog of more than 63,000 Covid-19 unprocessed test specimens, MPs have been told on Wednesday.
PARLIAMENT - The National Health Services Laboratory still has a backlog of more than 63,000 Covid-19 unprocessed test specimens, MPs have been told on Wednesday.
Gauteng had the biggest backlog with 23,000, followed by the Eastern Cape with 21,953 and KwaZulu-Natal with 18,000. In the Western Cape, the province that has two-thirds of the infections nationwide, has a backlog of 7,266 unprocessed specimens. Chetty said the bottleneck in the system arose because of shortages globally of extraction kits used in the diagnostics process. She said NHLS had a very difficult month in May as shortages set in at the same time that testing in South Africa had gathered speed significantly.
There were still problems with delivery times, though because lockdown restrictions around the world were slowing export chains.
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