The private laboratories testing for COVID-19 in South Sudan have until Monday, March 1, to comply fully with the protocols by providing detailed information about tested persons.
This is after the Ministry of Health put the facilities on notice during the COVID-19 press briefing on Sunday. The ministry faulted private labs for failing to provide the required data after testing travellers. The notice came up after the COVID-19 audit committee began the inspection in Juba to ascertain compliance with safety protocols.
“One of those criteria is your ability to share information with the ministry of health and the Emergency Operation Centre. [If you] are not sharing data with the ministry of health and the EOC then you’re not able to do the test,” said Dr Angelo Goup Thon, the manager of EOC.
“[This] is to make sure the positive cases details are submitted to EOC for the case management and the conduct tracing term to make sure they reach the positive cases.’’
Dr Thon heavily criticised the private facilities saying some of them just drop numbers of positive cases with no contacts for tracking.
He gave an example as he went on to say: “You say today I have tested 500 and out of this 500, I have 300 positive cases and 200 negatives. We will not be able to reach those cases so we need the details of those cases to make sure we have phone numbers and location such that our term reaches them.”
Last week on Friday, the doctors and private laboratories held a meeting to come up with a seamless case reportage and management. But even after that meeting, it appears that no change was made. This prompted the EOC to issue a deadline for compliance failure to which it would order for closure against the facilities.
“We have given them the last chance tomorrow [Monday] to make sure that the details are all submitted to the ministry otherwise we will give other recommendation to the task force and they can be closed downed,” Dr Thuon warned.
‘We [are] telling all the labs which are testing to complete testing investigation form and within the [form] there is provision for listing contacts before we take your sample, when you test positive we have all the information,’’ said Dr John Romunu, the director general for preventive health service.
“So, in this way, it will become easier for us to trace all those who tested positive and also trace their contacts.’’
COVID-19 Incident Manager Dr Richard Lako however attributed the problem to some individuals who fail to provide accurate contact details when being tested.
“Some people do not disclose the right numbers and actually some of the people that we do have their details give us fake telephone numbers so when we start following them, it becomes impossible” Dr. Lako explained.
He urged the public to give the right information when filling the form to make it possible to follow up and to protect their relatives in case someone tests positive.