By Kevin O'Neill
Reporter
Ireland now has the capacity to perform up to 100,000 Covid-19 tests per week due to new equipment sourced in China.
New testing kits and reagent sourced from China should allow Ireland to significantly ramp up its testing capacity but it could take a fortnight to coordinate the efforts across the country.
Dr Paul O’Brien, a regulatory expert on China, told RTÉ’s Today with Seán O’Rourke, that a coordinated effort with the IDA yielded a significant number of test kits. It has now been flown to Ireland by Aer Lingus.
The National Virus Reference Library has completed extensive due diligence on the equipment which is “up to spec” he said. It is of ‘gold standard’ quality.
The additional testing capacity will give Ireland a better chance at replicating South Korea’s model of testing and tracing, he explained.
Dr O’Brien, whose connections in China were crucial to sourcing the equipment, added that the narrative about PPE quality “has been skewed” and said that previous issues were more to do with regulatory questions than quality.
On the same programme, infectious diseases consultant, Prof Paddy Mallon warned that it would take two weeks to get coordination “up to scratch.”
“What we have in place now is the PCR machines and the reagent supply to do literally hundreds of thousands of extractions,” he said.
"Containment of this infection is key to us getting out of the lockdown safely, if we have testing operating at a high volume, and the reproduction number less than one, then we're in a position to test our way out of this.
“It's up now to the HSE to coordinate so someone who wakes up on a Monday morning with symptoms can get access to a swab, to process that swab, and to feed back the result within 24 hours. This needs to happen between now and the start of May,” said Prof Mallon.
The equipment is now being distributed around the country so that testing can be ramped up, said Prof Mallon.
Prof Mallon said Ireland encountered the same problems as many other countries in Europe: reagent and extraction kits were running low and many countries were competing for same supplies.
"It is one large piece of the jigsaw,” he added.
Respiratory consultant at the Bon Secours hospital in Cork, Dr Oisin O’Connell said this was “fantastic for Ireland as a whole.”
