Human Error in COVID-19 Testing

Marvin Manzanero

Testing for COVID-19, despite the number of kits in use, is not an error-proof exercise but is mandatory for anyone entering Belize when the airport re-opens.  According to the Director of Health Services, all efforts are being made to ensure the accuracy of tests being conducted.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“Well you will always have lab errors, I think that‘s a given, but you‘re also sharing information that I, myself, didn‘t know so thank you for sharing that situation.  I am aware of the situation in Dangriga, those persons have been swabbed again and those samples are on their way to Central Medical Lab and it can be with the labeling and not necessarily the technique.  And you can go back even to technique measures that we described back in March or April.  So again, what we have been using is the repatriation process as a gauge, if you will, to measure what it is you’re going to do.  The intention is also that we should be having staff permanently stationed or at least when flights are available at the airport to make sure that this doesn’t happen.  So it’s a work in progress and we don’t anticipate also that there will be plane loads of people coming in.  I mean the fact that we had forty-five samples processed on the same day or arrival allows us to start to gauge what our response is going to be and we have to escalate the amount of testing opportunities or days that we have at Central Medical Lab because we have that right now for the current situation.”