Belize’s COVID-19 Test Quota Limited to 1050 Persons

Director of Health Services, Dr. Marvin Manzanero, appeared on today’s episode of Ask the Expert where he responded to a number of questions put forward by members of the public.  Prior to the Q&A session, Dr. Manzanero touched on continued testing for COVID-19, acknowledging that last Friday saw the most tests being conducted in a single day.  The supply of tests has also been limited to a quota of one thousand, fifty.  The DHS began with an update on testing.

Marvin Manzanero

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“The issue as with other testing options that you have is supplies.  In discussions last Thursday with the supplier, CIFID, they have indicated that Belize’s quota, if you will, is one thousand and fifty individual tests only which means that you can only screen one thousand and fifty persons.  So we had anticipated that that would have been a backup option in terms of the PCR that we do because the turnaround time is quicker, you can get four results in thirty minutes.  But if this is the supply we’re going to be getting, that’s not going to be able to sustain a national response, so what we have decided as a result of Thursday to now is that these gene expert machines would be used at the regional hospital since their output in terms of patients that they are routinely screening is much less than what we are doing at the national level.  In terms of PCR testing, Friday is a record number of tests in a given day.  We did a hundred and fifty tests, the previous amount we had done in one single day had been a hundred and two.  So it is important that we stress that work at the lab continues and that’s not really going to stop.”