DILI, 21 december 2020 (TATOLI) — The Australian Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Peter Robert said that, the Timor-Leste National Laboratory, can routinely runs over 200 tests per day.
He made this announcement at the extension of the Clinical Pathology and Microbiology Laboratory at Bidau, Dili.
“During the early days of covid-19 we sent all samples to Darwin for the test and when the National laboratory was established our facilities were very few and able to test a handful of samples daily, but now there has been significant progress made in laboratory,” Peter Robert said.
The national laboratory has played a vital role in Timor-Leste successful management of COVID-19.
“We know that the important role of laboratory is to pass the correct diagnostic test to allow the doctors to provide treatment for the patients effectively. I am very grateful to the Health team and to the national laboratory, Menzies, the Fleming Fund team who working hard to protect us all,” Ambassador Peter Robert said.
The Australian Government remains committed to supporting the Ministry of Health to implement the covid-19 vaccine program for the population.
The Representative of Menzies Australia, Ismael Barreto, said that the national laboratory now has the capacity to handle covid-19 cases.
“Menzies’ support for the national laboratory is more focused on communication between surveillance and the medical approaches. This means that we are not only concentrating on increasing the number of tests given by the laboratory but also focused on the integrating work done by the laboratory which is given the correct and the proper results.
In spite the extention of the Clinical Pathorlogy and Microbiological clinic including the installation of new sophisticated automatic machines to run COVID and other infectious disease tests.
this important initiative will improve bio safety, minimise the risk of cross-contamination, reduce errors and speed up the turnaround time for covid-19 test, besides it is also allows the NL to support and strengthen network of diagnostic capacity through out the country.
Journalist : Felicidade Ximenes
Editor :Agapito dos Santos
