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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health has changed its COVID-19 testing protocols to prioritize symptomatic patients admitted in the hospitals.
Previously, the same emphasis was put for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. But now, the health ministry wants to make sure that tests for patients with symptoms are conducted first before those of asymptomatic patients.
With the new system, testing has been divided into four categories. Admitted persons presenting symptoms like fever, cough, flu, shortness of breath are grouped as a top priority and will have their particulars written using a red marker to show their level of urgency. Their results will also be released within 24 hours.
The second group will consist of symptomatic contacts or alerts. This group will have their kits labelled in orange and will have results released between 24-36 hours of being tested, while the third and fourth priority will be given to people picked through surveillance programs and community-based testing. Their details will be marked using yellow and green markers respectively and will have their results released between 48 and 72 hours after testing.
Dr Charles Olaro, the Director of Clinical Services says that they have decided to prioritize symptomatic patients because they want to quicken the time within which symptomatic cases get results to better manage them. He adds that the new protocol will enable them to rationalise tests kits that are becoming hard to procure due to global shortages.
Olaro adds that prioritizing tests will play a big role in reducing some of the deaths that are being reported.
“At times we have patients that are hospitalised but don’t have a positive test for us to handle them the way they need. If these people can be tested and we get their results early, we can give them treatment in a timely fashion,” he added.
The prioritizing of testing will take place at government-run facilities. There are six government-funded laboratories that test for COVID-19 across the country and on average 4,000 tests are carried out every day.
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