AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Zanzibar government, with support from a local businessman, Rostam Aziz, are about to establish a new testing laboratory as part of the Isles government plan to expedite testing for coronavirus (Covid-19) within the archipelago.
According to a press release from the Zanzibar Department of Information, Maelezo, one of the three machines planned to be bought, has been brought into the country from South Korea where it was purchased.
The laboratory is being set up at Binguni area, South Unguja Region, where Covid- 19 testing and the analysis will be conducted instead of relying on mainland facilities.
“Each machine has a capacity of testing samples from 96 people in eight hours, therefore it can give results for 288 samples in 24 hours,” reads a press release signed by Maelezo’s Director Dr Juma Mohamed Salum.
It says that the two more machines for virology laboratory are expected in the country as soon as possible for fixing in Unguja and Pemba. The cost of the project was not revealed.
In March this year, when the country started recording Covid-19 cases, President Ali Mohamed Shein visited the ongoing construction of a microbiology laboratory at Binguni and ordered that it was high time an equipment for testing Covid-19 was acquired.
