People taking Covid-19 tests may have to wait longer than usual to get their results as medics at the national referral laboratory are facing an overload of samples to handle. According to the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the situation is due to a surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. “Due to a surge of Covid-19 cases, our lab is re-processing many samples that were initially processed in pooled testing. This has eventually led to delays in results deliveries,” read a tweet from the official handle of RBC. Normally, it has been taking about 24 hours for a person to get results of their real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RBC did not specify how long people will need to wait in regard to the new developments, however, they promised that they are “working around the clock” to resolve the issue and get back to the usual turnaround time. Cases of Covid-19 have been increasing recently in the country. Over the past seven days, a total of 655 new cases have been registered, meaning, an average of 93 cases per day. The test positivity rate (the number of positive cases registered out of the total number of tests carried out) currently stands at 2.6 per cent. Meanwhile, the country has increased the availability of testing services recently in a bid to make Covid-19 testing services accessible to more citizens. Since last week, private clinics are testing patients for the coronavirus using antigen rapid tests in accordance with the instructions given by the Ministry of Health. Here, RBC published a list of 42 private clinics countrywide that are accredited to start testing patients using antigen rapid tests. In addition to this, about a week and a half ago, RBC in partnership with Kigali International Airport established a PCR Covid-19 testing centre at the airport This is meant to ensure that all arriving passengers are tested from the premise.
