The head of the Regional Health Authority said today that the Azores will maintain the need to have two negative diagnostic tests to certify the recovery of patients with covid-19.
Tiago Lopes, also Regional Director for Health, was speaking in Angra do Heroísmo, on Terceira Island, at the daily situation about the evolution of the covid-19 outbreak in the Azores.
On the continent, it was announced today that those infected with the new coronavirus who are at home will be considered recovered cases if, after 14 days, they have a single negative test and if they no longer have symptoms.
Patients admitted to hospitals will continue to need two negative tests, with a 24-hour interval, to be considered recovered from covid-19, announced the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, and the Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas , at the daily press conference on the situation of the new coronavirus pandemic in Portugal.
Graça Freitas explained that “mild patients, who stay at home and have mild symptoms, have the indication to do a single test and are considered recovered if the test is negative”, after the symptoms are overcome.
Asked about the procedure to be adopted in the Azores, the head of the Regional Health Authority explained that that orientation of the Directorate-General for Health “will be discussed internally with the other elements of the technical group”, but added that “there is no type in the region problem ”with regard to the capacity for analysis at the laboratory level“ it is no longer a second analysis to certify the negativity of a possible recovered case that we will stop doing it ”.
“It is a situation that this emanation was already foreseen, but considering our laboratory diagnostic capacity in the region, I think that there will be no problem maintaining what is in effect until the moment, which is the performance of two negative tests to certify the recovery process of a infected by covid-19 ”, underlined Tiago Lopes.
The official reiterated that the two laboratory units in the region (in São Miguel and Terceira) that test covid-19 “have laboratory capacity”, but “the region is always planning the present” to “protect the future”, namely “A possible second wave” of the outbreak.
“We have a capacity at the moment in the region that is more than sufficient to meet the needs in combating covid-19. In any case, and already anticipating a possible second wave of the outbreak, we are studying this possibility of increasing this laboratory analysis capacity ”, explained Tiago Lopes.
The Azores have not recorded positive cases of covid-19 in the last 24 hours, which happens for the third consecutive day.
So far, a total of 138 cases have been detected in the region, with 27 recovered, nine deaths and 102 active positive cases for infection with the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes covid-19 disease, 76 in São Miguel, four on Terceira island, five on Graciosa, three on São Jorge, nine on Pico and five on Faial.
Globally, according to a report by the AFP news agency, the covid-19 pandemic has already killed more than 198,000 people and infected more than 2.8 million people in 193 countries and territories.
In Portugal, 880 people out of 23,392 confirmed as infected died, and there are 1,277 cases recovered, according to the Directorate-General for Health.
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