The capacity to analyse samples taken from people to detect COVID-19 will supposedly be raised from 2000 to 5000 samples per day after the weekend.
This was stated in a civil defense information meeting by Karl G. Kristinsson, chief physician at the Department of Pathology and Virology at Landspítalinn, according to reports from Vísir.
By transfering parts of Landspítali’s Department of Pathology and Virology to the headquarters of deCODE, it’s hoped to increase the analysing capacities, which had been previously based on 2000 samples per day, although significantly more samples had to be processed in recent days.
According to a report from Kjarninn, the average number of samples last week has been over 2500 samples per day and in the last two days the number exceeded 3000.
Karl is reported saying that the department’s equipment has been under a lot of pressure but it’s hoped that by working together with deCODE and its equipment that the capacity can be increased by a 150%, to the estimated 5000 samples per day.
Additionally, more efficient devices have been ordered by the faculty and are supposed to arrive in November, according to the Kjarninn report.
“Unfortunately, the most efficient device will not arrive until November, but there is a huge excess demand for such devices in the world these days,” Karl said. “Though it’s not enough to have equipment, we also need staff, sampling kits and substrates. Although sampling kits and reagents have often been scarce, they have been procured with the help of good people.”
He pointed out in the last information meeting that the number of employees has increased significantly with 20 employees having been hired to carry out sampling.
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