Public health officials are being urged to include positive results from COVID-19 rapid tests in the country’s daily tallies, as the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) says potentially thousands of cases are not being recorded in the country’s most recent wave of the virus.
BAMP has also called for greater regulation of rapid testing and has been supported in that call by pharmacists who are concerned about an apparent surge of unauthorised retailers offering the tests without adequate medical training.
The association’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Dr Russell Broomes-Webster told Barbados TODAY that while guidelines were established last year for the use of rapid tests as a tool to quickly identify and care for infected people, a positive result is only recorded after confirmation from a PCR test, even when the rapid test is conducted at a public healthcare facility.
“We are only using the PCR when we report our positivity rates, while in many other countries there’s been a move to identify all persons who are testing positive,” he said.
“So, you can see that there is already a delay when that happens and while confirming the tests would be necessary, we can feel pretty confident that a symptomatic person who tests positive on an appropriately administered rapid test is generally going to be infectious with COVID-19, especially because there are limited resources in circumstances where there is significant community transmission with almost 12,000 people in home isolation and maybe 20,000 or more who may be in quarantine.
“We want central reporting done and there are facilities for that, so that we know what kind of positivity exists in the community, irrespective of the PCR testing,” the PRO added.
Dr Broomes-Webster acknowledged that in an ideal scenario, all tests would be administered by trained healthcare professionals.
However, with limited manpower, he said, the emphasis should be on educating citizens on the importance of logging their rapid test results in a central reporting system.
He explained that this would assist physicians with identifying conditions like post-COVID syndrome and preventing people from being isolated longer than necessary.
“At this point in time, with the advent of self-administered testing and so on, there are probably a lot more cases per day that are not being identified as they should be, and there are many, many challenges with that,” Dr Broomes Webster declared.
“But, clearly, it has to be managed in a more formal and organised way so that we can get the word out there so people don’t buy inappropriate tests, so people don’t use tests inappropriately, and so people are encouraged to report the results centrally.”
Meanwhile, Paul Gibson, a former member of the Barbados Pharmaceutical Society, explained that pharmacists, many of whom offer the rapid tests for sale, are concerned about the sale of tests by retailers “outside the medical space”.
“So you have a security company, somebody selling boots and rakes and then you look on the shelves and you see COVID-19 tests,” he complained.
“They are not being stored properly in a controlled environment which we are trained to do. These are factors that are an important part of managing the process. You may have kits in those environments that are at the wrong temperatures, that are compromised and you may be getting false positives because of that,” he added.
Gibson believes that anyone selling rapid tests should have a direct connection with Government’s COVID-19 facilities.
“We believe there should be better facilitation of communication between the pharmacists, the doctors, the COVID unit and the epidemiologists and so on. We are very comfortable in the space and . . . we must be very mindful of the genesis of COVID kits being available for everybody. In the US, pharmacists give vaccines at Walmart, CVS, and in the UK as well, and it is something that we should be doing and have the capacity to do because we were trained for it,” added the pharmacist.
At Fitts Village, St James, pharmacist Shantell Clarke said testing kits have been in high demand from tourists leaving the island, since Christmas.
“The demand was really high, I remember we sold like 30 tests within a 24-hour period,” she said.
“As a healthcare professional, at least for me, whenever I’m dealing with a customer it’s always health first and what is the most suitable step or treatment to make sure that a customer gets effective or efficient care for what they are experiencing. But when you go into places where the focus is not healthcare, then yes, it would make you question whether you are really seeking to help customers maintain good health or if you see it as an opportunity to make a quick buck because of the environment that we are in,” Clarke added. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb
