Priority should be given to conduct aggressive testing to identify COVID-19 positive persons while taking samples from individuals in the community, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) said.

Addressing a media briefing today GMOA General Secretary Dr. Haritha Aluthge said the Health Ministry cannot escape from this pandemic situation by claiming that the number of PCR tests have increased.

“The maximum number of PCR tests that could be done per day was 8,000. However, the Health Ministry should find other ways to increase the testing capacity to 10,000,” Dr Aluthge said.

He said the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) announced that the capacity in laboratories to conduct the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests has almost exceeded and therefore, a system called Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) should be introduced.

However, he said the Health Ministry should introduce the RAT to detect COVID-19 patients after conducting an accurate technical analysis.(Chaturanga Samarawickrama)