Last Updated on March 30, 2020, 9:34 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Jamaica has discovered two new positive cases of the novel coronavirus. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Jamaica has now come up to 34.
The two new cases were found when two out of 5 pending test were found positive by the National Influenza Centre.
The two new cases include a 34 -year-old female from St. James and she has travel history from New York.
The other patient is a 74-year-old female who belongs to St. Catherine and has travel history from New York as well.
The classification of cases has shown that out of the total 34 cases, twenty-three are imported cases while ten are import-related cases, and one is still under investigation.
A 60-year-old female who belongs to Portland has been classified now as an import-related case.
The country has to date conducted tests on 292 samples, which include tests for Severe Acute Respiratory Infections.
Thirty-four out of the 292 tests have tested positive for the novel coronavirus while 253 samples have tested negative.
This shows a positivity yield of 11.6 per cent.
Five results are still pending, and the results would soon be made available.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Health is increasing its capacity to test for COVID-19.
The extraction process of testing at the National Influenza Centre is also being made automated for achieving greater efficiency, and this would also increase the capacity of the number of samples which can be tested to more than 100 per day.
A COBAS 6800 machine is being installed at the National Public Health Laboratory.
Equipment installation and training of staff would be completed in the next three weeks.
The facility would be able to complement the work being done at the National Influenza Centre, which has the capacity to test almost 380 samples per eight hours per day.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
