Coronavirus: Botswana's testing capacity enhanced

29 Avril 2020

Gaborone, Botswana, April 29 (Infosplusgabon) - Botswana’s capacity for testing the populace for COVID-19 (coronavirus) infections has been increased.

The development comes after international diamonds mining group De Beers on Tuesday donated a testing machine to the Southern African country.

According to the Minister of Health and Wellness, Lemogang Kwape, the donation will help speed up testing for coronavirus and reduce the workload on members of staff at the National Health Laboratory (NHL) in the capital, Gaborone.

"Our testing capability is going to go up, thus making the job easier at the health lab," Kwape said.

The testing machine, a QIAGEN EZ1 Advanced XL instrument, performs fully automated nucleic acid purification and enables approximately 150 tests per day, increasing NHL’s testing capacity to 650 specimen per day.

The De Beers Stakeholder Relations Specialist, Tlamelo Kebalatetse, said De Beers heeded government's call for donations to help during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that the donated testing machine comes with a refrigerator for keeping samples.

“We will continue to work with the government to understand how else we can support the critical work focused on keeping Botswana’s citizens safe and well,” said Kebalatetse.

Currently, a total of five people who tested positive to the coronavirus in Botswana have recovered, as the country has recorded 23 cases with one death.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/RDF/GABON2020

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