Health minister says positive individuals doing well and being observed
COVID testing continuing at PMH and Doctors Hospital
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A recent outbreak of COVID-19 at the National Reference Laboratory was traced back to personnel conducting a vaccination outreach exercise, according to Minister of Health Renward Wells.
A total of 11 people contracted the virus at the facility, which remains closed.
According to Wells, all of the infected personnel are recovering in quarantine.
“The National Reference Lab is also where we have our HIV lab facilities and others,” he said.
“We have a number of persons who work in those two facilities — on the bottom floor and on the top floor.
“I believe we would have had probably 11 individuals and we believe we would have traced it to a particular event where they were doing an outreach in the Bahamian community that may have brought about that particular circumstance.
“But everyone who has tested positive is doing well and they’re being observed.
“They’re in quarantine and we’re looking forward to getting the lab back up and running very soon.”
Wells assured that COVID-19 testing has continued at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and Doctors Hospital, both of which have the necessary equipment to perform laboratory tests.
“We are continuously moving forward with the testing in-country,” he said.
“We have moved our testing facilities to PMH because PMH has three machines — GeneXpert machine, the Panther and BioFire — which we do our testing there.
“And also, we have enlisted the aid of Doctors Hospital that has been doing testing throughout this pandemic; they’re going to be doing the testing of the additional samples for us as well.”
Despite the closure of the National Reference Lab, COVID-19 testing has not been impacted.
There were 2,451 tests performed in the last week, between June 27 and July 31.
During the week prior — June 19 through June 26 — 2,480 tests were performed.
The Bahamas has performed 108,834 COVID-19 tests to date.
Of the 519 tests completed on Saturday, 40 returned positive results.
Another seven were repeated tests and two were inconclusive.
This gives The Bahamas a positivity rate of just under eight percent, which is above the global standard of five percent for the reopening of the country.
Last month, The Bahamas recorded a coronavirus positivity rate as high as 14 percent.
There have been concerns about the rapid spread of the virus and a spike in cases of late, with a health official speculating the more contagious Delta variant could have already arrived on The Bahamas’ shores.
However, samples sent abroad to be tested for new strains have not been returned to provide evidence of which strains, if any, have impacted the nation.
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