The case manager for Covid-19 Torit town of Eastern Equatoria State Ohisa Wilborn Augustine has raised an alarm over the lack of cartridges to operate the existing coronavirus testing machine at Torit State Hospital.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj, Wilborn said, “The machine is working properly but what is missing are cartridges that is why the samples are being sent to Juba. That is one of the biggest challenges and I hope the ministry of health and the World Health Organization are working hard to bring this thing from Juba so that testing is done from here."
He said he does not know when the cartridges will be delivered but said they have a few testing kits that they use for contact tracing.
According to the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Isaac John, the machine can only test about 10-15 samples daily and that testing will only be for those with symptoms and those already in quarantine.
The health official said that the people in Torit do not observe Covid-19 protocols making efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus difficult as many people don’t believe the virus is real.
Dr. Richard Laku, the Covid-19 incident manager in Juba, when contacted said he had no information regarding the lack of materials to operate the testing machine in Torit.
“I have not gotten this information but we always make sure that these people in the states have their testing kits and other things should not run out so they get their supplies before. But if they are overwhelmed and doing more testing then they should be alerting us early. I have not seen this on my table. Last week we had a steering committee and nothing had been reported to us. I think they (Torit) had reported additional 11 cases contributing to the bigger picture,” Dr. Laku said.
He said the country is experiencing the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and that cases have doubled in the last month alone.
“This is the second wave and we don’t know when we shall close the gap because you people are relaxed. People are not wearing masks or adhering to the measures and this has raised a concern that we are now seeing more additional cases are coming up compared to the previous wave,” Dr. Laku said. "We used to stand at 60 cases but now we reach hundreds in a day. In February alone, we picked up additional 40 deaths. This shows that the situation is not good, the neighboring country's cases are going down but for us, we are going up.”
He expressed frustration over the continuous violation of coronavirus preventive measures throughout the country and said he expected the law enforcement agencies to implement the lockdown to save the population.
In September last year, Torit hospital, the main referral facility in Eastern Equatoria State started testing for Covid-19 after the national ministry upgraded the Tuberculosis and HIV testing machine to test Covid-19.