'We're working hard’ to resolve shortage of Covid-19 testing material: HSE boss Reid
The chief executive of the Health Service Executive has said officials are “working hard” to resolve a shortage of testing materials for Covid-19.
Paul Reid appealed to the public to “bear with us” as the HSE tries to address the worldwide issue.
In a short time we have scaled up on, testing centres, testing kits, contact tracers, nbr of Labs, hospital beds, ICU, ventilators, PPE, staff.
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) April 1, 2020
Our current major issue is "reagents" for labs. A worldwide shortage. We are working hard to fix this. Bear with us @HSELive #COVID19
He was speaking after it emerged that Ireland is falling short of the target number of tests being carried out each day.
In a tweet he said: “In a short time we have scaled up on, testing centres, testing kits, contact tracers, nbr of Labs, hospital beds, ICU, ventilators, PPE, staff.
“Our current major issue is ‘reagents’ for labs.
On Wednesday it was confirmed there had been 14 more deaths and 212 new cases of Covid-19 in the Republic.
Eighty-five people have died since the outbreak began here.
On Thursday the head of the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at the Royal College of Surgeons said that increasing contact tracing of people with symptoms would work more effectively than waiting for test results.
Professor Ruairi Brugha told RTE’s Morning Ireland: “Instead of having delays of up to 10 days, we can move in when people have symptoms and start contact tracing at that point.”