Dominica’s Health minister Dr. Irving MC Intrye says samples have been sent to CARPHA for investigation.
“They will be the ones to confirm whether we have the different variant”
He said the agency will confirm which variant is in Dominica and added there is a possibility that the delta variant is on the island due to the transmission level of the virus.
Mc Intrye further stated that to confirm the data, we would need proper evidence and CARPHA is the one to tell us, yes we have the variant or not.
The country’s health minister also stated that the PCR was used as the gold standard to diagnose a case of covid-19, over the past few months, other countries and international health organizations have realized that the antigen test is just as effective.
“So the antigen we can consider it as a diagnostic test as well, so whereas previously we just use the PCR to diagnose with this present wave we started using the antigen test because we had to step up our capacity to test.”
Meantime the country reported 727 cases of covid-19 on the weekend.
Mc Intrye said with this present wave we have tested about 13,000 people using the antigen test.
“So presently we have like 394 cases which we confirmed with PCR and those we have confirmed with the antigen is 333 that brings us to 727 cases.”
