Specialists in epidemiology and infectious diseases have unanimously agreed that the intense demand for rapid test analyzes to detect the Coronavirus may help break the chain of transmission of infection between members of society.
The President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the day before yesterday, Wednesday, during an extraordinary meeting to assess the epidemiological situation of Covid-19, instructed the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health, “to provide detection tests, of all kinds, and in abundant quantities, while facilitating their acquisition for the benefit of citizens in all regions of the country and in all circumstances”.
The head of the Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine Department at the Setif Hospital Center, Slimane Laouamri, considered that “the citizens’ willingness to get tested is due to the prevention of the widespread of the “Omicron” mutant in recent weeks, and perhaps choosing this type of analysis is due to the high prices of PCR tests, He praised this behavior, which he described as “civilized, which must be followed by a demand for vaccination.”
For his part, the head of the National Association of Biological Laboratories, Abdelhalim Chachoua, revealed that, in recent days, after the high rate of infection with the “Omicron” mutant, the laboratories received a huge number of citizens to conduct rapid tests on the virus ranging between 100 and 200 cases per day, according to the location of the laboratories, confirming that 70 percent of the “positive” results of infection with this virus were recorded in this sample.
With regard to the prices of these tests, Dr. Chahoua explained that they range between 2000 and 2500 dinars, which is “less than the ceiling set by the Ministry of Health, which is 3000 dinars.”
Regarding the “ineffectiveness” of the results of these tests at times, Dr. Chahoua attributed them to the “chaotic” practice of this profession by “non-specialists,” calling for biologists to assign rapid tests to detect the virus “only.”
For his part, Djamel Zougueilache, an epidemiologist at the Ibn Badis University Hospital Center in Constantine, explained the difference between the analyzes of rapid tests to detect the virus that determine the protein of this virus and the “BCR” analyzes that reveal its germ, describing the latter as the most effictive” in detecting infections.
For reference, the Ministry of Health is the only body legally authorized to grant licenses to open private sector laboratories, while the Pasteur Institute of Algiers provides technical guidance on the equipment and tools used by these laboratories.
