The recent delay in returning test results has been blamed on the absence of a critical testing component.
And having ordered some in advance since last September, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has conceded she is not in a position to say when the country would be receiving new stock.
“We do and have had some challenges in the last four, five days with respect to test results and it is largely because the reagent for the automatic extraction and the RNA from the samples is not available.
“We would have received some from Guyana and we thank the Government of Guyana for that. We have been in negotiations through all of our embassies… but out there is like the Wild Wild West,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
She, however, said that test results would be made available, albeit slower.
Mottley said because of the high demand, the products had been extremely difficult to source.
“But let me say to you that the automatic extractor makes life easy. We have enough reagents for manual extraction but that is tiresome, time consuming and now that I have seen what happens in the lab as well, it is also tiring on the eyes, so it’s going to take a lot longer even though we have tanta reagents for manual extraction,” she explained.
“The lab ordered the reagents for the automatic extraction when we had more than tens of thousands in our supply and they ordered it as far back as September from the manufacturers and in spite of that we have not received it in January.
“We are hopeful that we can try and get some, but the truth is that all kinds of persons are putting restrictions and quotas and all kinds of things in place because they too need it for their own countries and this is one of the difficulties that a small country such as ours will have because we are very often price takers as well as now product takers because we don’t have the size to determine or influence the market,” Mottley added.
(RB)
