SVG still awaiting result on 5 COVID-19 tests

St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) was, up to Thursday night, awaiting results of COVID-19 tests on four persons.

The tests include samples from the sole person (“Patient Zero”) in SVG who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Simone Keizer-Beache told iWitness News Thursday night that the Ministry of Health in Kingstown had done what is necessary but was yet to receive the result from Trinidad.

The tests are being conducted at the Caribbean Public Health Agency Laboratory in Port-of-Spain.

She said that CARPHA recommends that a person who tested positive and is treated for COVID-19 be tested again on day 14 and 21.

Further, the standard is for two tests to be conducted within 24 hours.

A Vincentian woman, whose age was given as between 30 and 35, tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11, four days after she returned from the United Kingdom.

She began exhibiting symptoms on March 10 and has been quarantined since then.

In a national address Wednesday night, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said there had been no other positive case since then, even though 28 other persons had been tested so far.

He said these were either persons with the symptoms of the virus or “relevant persons of interest”, adding that Kingstown was awaiting results from five more tests which were sent earlier that day.

The prime minister further said the equipment, materials, and supplies for testing COVID-19 have been ordered and were due to arrive in SVG “shortly”. 

Gonsalves said that other materials and supplies to combat COVID-19 have also been ordered and were also due to arrive “soonest”,” Gonsalves said.

He noted that until in-country testing becomes available, testing is being done at the CARPHA labs in Trinidad or in Barbados, courtesy of that country’s government.

Minister of Health Senator Luke Browne had said in early March that the equipment was expected to arrive by the end of March.