By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera  

Steps will be taken for immediate procurement of PCR machines and increase the PCR laboratory capacity in line with the escalating COVID-19 cases, Health Minister Pavithra Vanniarachchi said yesterday. 

She told Parliament that Cabinet approval was granted to allocate funds to purchase equipment required in the COVID prevention measures.  

The Minister said this responding to a question raised by MP Sanakiyan Rasamanickam, who said that only 1,000 PCR tests were being conducted in the Eastern Province a day and of them, results of only 500 tests were being issued.  

The Minister said instructions had already been given to increase the existing laboratory capacity and to operate laboratories for twenty-four hours.  

“We initially had only one PCR machine at the MRI where we could do only 96 PCR tests at a time. Now, around 25,000 PCR tests are done in Sri Lanka. 15,000 tests are done in state laboratories.We will increase the PCR capacity as the number of patients increase,” she said.