The government of Uganda has acquired state-of-art equipment used in COVID-19 tests, the Ministry of Health announced on Sunday.
The MOH says, the Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) received 15,000 COVID-19 test kits for the cobas 8800, a real time PCR machine with capacity of running 3,000 tests per day and about 192 tests per hour.
This state of the art technology exists only in 3 countries in Africa; South Africa, Uganda and Kenya, according to the message posted on MOH social media platforms.
CPHL is one of the laboratories in Uganda that has been assessed and dedicated to carry out COVID-19 testing, as part of the country’s plan to scale up testing in the country.
Testing for COVID-19 at CPHL starts Sunday according to MOH.
The cobas 8800 System provide up to 96 results in about three and a half hours and a total of 1056 results for in 8 hours.
The fully-automated system makes it possible for labs to perform up to three tests in the same run with no pre-sorting required. It also enable four hours of walk-away time with minimal user interaction.
The equipment comes immediately after the MOH announced new measures to control the spread of coronavirus which include community testing and mandatory tests for truck drivers.
Uganda has 227 confirmed COVID-19 cases with at least 63 recoveries and no deaths.