‘Hear tening’ drop in test backlog

The Covid-19 testing backlog in the Western Cape, which had reached 27 000 tests by the end of May, has almost been cleared by the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) by the end of last week. The backlog was caused by a shortage of test kits and reagents. Uncertainty around the availability of supplies still remains.

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said before deciding whether to adapt or change their testing strategy again, they will continue to monitor the situation to determine if the increased capacity for testing can be sustained and that backlogs do not start anew.

Because of the backlog, the Western Cape Health Department had started to reserve testing for certain groups who show symptoms - health care workers, those in hospital, those older than 55 and all people with comorbidities.

Dr Keith Cloete, head of the Western Cape Health

Department, said where people in hospital have waited for up to five days for test results, last week they started receiving results within 24 hours.

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), testing was ramped up from 20 000 tests per day during the latter part of May, to over 40 000 tests conducted on some days last week. According to Cloete, the NHLS did some process re-engineering and brought "additional capacity to the system". The Western Cape first raised the testing backlog with President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister Zweli Mkhize at the beginning of May when provinces started to increase testing.

Winde said, "Until all the systems are functioning seamlessly to allow us to open up testing more widely again, our advice to healthy people under the age of 55 who may be experiencing symptoms is to behave as if you have tested positive for Covid-19. This includes self-isolating for a period of 14 days."