Additional Testing Kits Procured for Belize

Dean Barrow

There are more details on the coronavirus preparedness.  The issue of testing kits and their availability locally, in order to confirm whether persons who are exhibiting signs of COVID-19 are in fact positive, are still pressing concerns for many Belizeans.  While those pieces of equipment have been ordered from a German company, the prompt disbursement of funds from Central Bank and other lending institutions should see the procurement, as well as the arrival of those kits in Belize in the days to come.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“We have already ordered extra testing kits from a company called Roche, a German company, not necessarily operating in Germany.  We‘re getting kits, additional kits from PAHO.  We‘re getting kits from several sources.  We have put in a request to the Cubans.  I saw where they sent a number of personnel to Jamaica, to assist Jamaica. We have already put in a long list. Apart from what we are prepared to pay for out of our own resources, and remember, Mrs. Grant can make this twenty million dollars available as soon as we can pass the supplementary or the additional allocation to the budget and the million U.S. from CABEI will be in our coffers by Friday.  So, the immediate needs in terms of scaling up with respect to equipment and protective gear and that sort of thing we are able to take care of.”