Johannesburg - The processing of tests for Covid-19 was more important than ever before, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
In addition, it advised African countries easing their respective lockdown regulations to “tread with caution”.
Regional director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti said even though countries like South Africa, following a robust testing programme, reported a particularly high number of Covid-19 cases and saw doubling time remain stable at about two weeks since the confinement, measures had started to be relaxed.
It was still important to stay on the ball with testing and surveillance.
“Ending a lockdown is not an event, but a process, and it’s important to have a clear view of local conditions so informed decisions can be made about how to relax these measures.
“We must all remain vigilant. As more countries begin to ease confinement measures, it is vital that effective testing and surveillance systems are in place to detect any spike in cases,” said Moeti.
DA provincial health spokesperson Jack Bloom said they were concerned by the spiking numbers of Covid-19 tests not processed timeously in the province, despite warnings in place from international health bodies.
Bloom said according to the figures given by Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, as of May 25, there were 24076 tests still not processed.
“I am hugely concerned by the tests in Gauteng which have not been processed as this severely hampers efforts to speedily identify and curb emerging hotspots in the province.
“As the average positivity rate has been a bit below 2%, this means more than 400 Covid-19 infected people have not been diagnosed in Gauteng because of the test backlog. Many of them are probably asymptomatic but they could still pass on the infection,” he said.
Bloom said observations of the infection figures in Gauteng, from May 23 to 30, had indicated sharp increases which averaged 135 cases a day.
And while he admitted the province had done well to keep the mortality rate at 1%, with 31 deaths to date, Bloom said this could increase sharply with the new rush of hospital admittances.
“The real number of active Covid-19 cases for Gauteng is probably closer to 8 000, bearing in mind the test backlogs and the rule of thumb that there are at least three other cases for each identified case.
“Test results taking up to 10 days or longer completely undermines the
purpose of mass testing. Gauteng needs to do about 10 000 tests a day and the backlogs need to be resolved promptly to curb the infections.”