Limited Covid-19 testing in county as new kits awaited

Limited Covid-19 testing in counties along the border region will take place from tomorrow (Wednesday) depending on the availability of testing kits, The Anglo-Celt can reveal.

As of today (Tuesday), March 31, 2020, testing took place at the following testing sites across CHO 1: 

1. Cloghan, GAA Park, Monaghan 
2. Clarion Road, Sligo 
3. O'Donnell Park, Letterkenny 
5. Lakeside Centre, Ballyshannon 
4. Ballyhaise, Cavan 
5. Carrickonshannon, Leitrim 

A spokesperson for the HSE conceded: "Testing capacity has been constrained since Sunday, March 29, due to stock limitations of testing kits.

From tomorrow limited testing will be available at various sites across CHO 1, which includes counties Cavan and Monaghan, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal. The HSE await confirmation of the next expected delivery of testing kits. 

All clients are informed of which centre to attend for their test in advance. 

“We await confirmation of the next expected delivery of testing kits and once we have these, testing will resume at the designated testing centres.”

The lack of testing kits available is also holding up the opening of a new much larger drive-through testing facility at Kingspan Breffni in Cavan Town.

It had been hoped, following delay, that the Kingspan Breffni would become operational for patient testing from Wednesday, April 1.

As reported first online and this newspaper, the new “drive-through” testing centre on the Creighan site will include two mobile testing units, with staff attending the centre to be provided with their own separate washing facilities in the backrooms.

The Ballyhaise system currently sees patients waiting for swabs wait in their cars in the local church carpark before being called to attend the test site.

As of Sunday last, March 29, approximately 38,000 people had been offered appointments for testing in Community Testing Centres.

Testing in Ireland started on March 16.

Almost a week later the Government and HSE changed the case definition for Covid 19 testing to ensure testing was targeted to high risk groups and those at risk of exposure to Covid-19.

“Nationally, there are significant challenges in terms of supplies of reagent for Covid testing at laboratories. This is a global challenge with major suppliers having to ration provision across the world and we are making every effort to procure new stocks,” the HSE admits. “Over the last number of weeks we have increased the number of hospitals providing Covid-19 testing with 12 hospital laboratories testing for Covid-19 as well as the National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL). In addition testing is being done at the HSE Public Analyst Laboratories and a laboratory in the Department of Agriculture.”