Kenya hopes to test 250,000 people for COVID-19 by June

Kenyan laboratories on the front line in the fight against coronavirus are stepping up their preparedness.

At the Kemri Medical Research Institute in the capital Nairobi, researchers are tracking the virus with a range of newer equipment.

They are preparing samples in machines capable of testing several thousand people in a day.

“The beauty of the equipment is that it is high through input equipment which is able to test up to 960 samples in an eight-hour shift”, William Otieno, Research Assistant Officer at Kemri Medical Research Institute said.

Faster and more secure machine detections have accelerated daily testing.

“So far here in western Kenya, we cover western Kenya and part of south Rift. We have tested almost nine hundred samples and al of those we have released results, we have tried working really hard on our turnaround time, we try our best to make sure that our turnaround time is within twenty-four hours”, said Layton o. Onyango, Deputy Director and Molecular Virologist.

Kenya, which recently launched a major anti-COVID-19 testing campaign, hopes to carry out nearly 250,000 tests by June.