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May 11, 2020 – 11:45 p. m.
Drafting of El País
Since the second week of March, when the first case of a person with Coronavirus was reported in Valle del Cauca, to date, 19,044 tests have been processed to the inhabitants of the department to detect the disease, of which 17,549 have been negative. and 128 were rejected; the rest have been positive.
According to María Cristina Lesmes, Health Secretary of Valle del Cauca, currently, every day, a little more than 500 tests are being processed throughout the department.
Among the questions of some sectors to this process is the delay in the delivery of the results, where delays have been reported for even a week after the test was performed. Likewise, the Mayor of Cali, Jorge Iván Ospina, has repeatedly been asked to increase the number of tests, at least to 1,000 daily, in order to have a greater capacity to react when containing the pandemic.
Faced with the first questioning, the Valle Health Secretary stated that since the beginning of the quarantine to date, processes have been adjusted to improve the delivery of test results.
“The testing processes are carried out in laboratories in Cali,
It may interest you: Colombia received 500,000 reagents to process Covid-19 tests
Medellín and Bogotá. Sometimes not all of them can be processed because they are rejected and that is why there are some delays in deliveries. Sometimes the laboratory receives the delayed test, it can take up to 48 hours to arrive. It is a process that has been adjusting, ”he said.
It should be remembered that the tests are processed in seven laboratories in Valle del Cauca; at the National Institute of Health, in Bogotá, and those of EPS Sura patients, in Medellín.
In relation to the 500 tests that are carried out daily in Valle del Cauca and that seem few compared to a population of 4.5 million inhabitants, epidemiologist Robinson Pacheco, explained that taking samples from potential carriers of the virus is only one of strategies to contain the disease.
“500 tests a day will always be better than zero tests … The strategy in some countries is to carry out many tests,” he said.
According to the epidemiologist, there are currently 1,331 positive cases of Covid in Valle del Cauca and those people could have direct contact with at least three people, according to Dane data.
“The figure corresponds to the number of people who are infected and who were tested but there is a percentage of individuals who do not have the symptoms but who may have the disease. From that point of view, it would be important to test high-risk people where cases are being concentrated, “he said.
The specialist added that the tests will never be sufficient if the community does not comply with quarantine, distancing and hygiene measures.
“A million tests can be done, but if the community continues exposing it will not be enough. For this reason, the diagnostic algorithms must be accompanied by measures that help cut the transmission chain. The tests say who is infected and who is not, but it is not a unique strategy to reduce the impact of the epidemic, “he concluded.
54,085 reagents to detect the
Covid – 19 will arrive in Valle del Cauca
The coronavirus strategy manager, Luis Guillermo Plata, announced that he will distribute at least 500,000 tests throughout the country to detect Covid-19.
“We have managed to obtain 500,000 extraction reagents. They will be distributed throughout the national territory so that regional laboratories increase the testing capacity and achieve at least 1,200,000 tests carried out in the next 3 months, “said Plata.
In addition, he assured that a national reserve is being created for all the elements of protection for health personnel, such as face masks, gloves, caps, leggings, glasses and anti-fluid gowns.
“In this way, we seek to protect our health personnel so that they can care for patients and have as many supplies as possible in the shortest time possible, because everyone is competing for these resources,” he said.
The reagents will be delivered as follows: Valle del Cauca will receive 54,085, Antioquia 76,215, Atlántico 28,975, Bolívar 34,719, Amazonas 898, Arauca 3,076 and Bogotá 93,265.
“The great goal we have is to achieve on the part of the laboratories that handle the public health reagents about 1,200,000 tests and on the part of the private laboratories around 1,600,000. With this, we will achieve a wide diagnostic capacity and we can monitor the transmission status of Covid throughout the national territory, “explained Martha Ospina, director of the National Institute of Health.
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