The Controller of the PNG COVID-19 National Pandemic Response has urged the public in the National Capital District to go for a test for COVID-19, if they have symptoms of the disease.
The common symptoms of COVID-19 include cough, fever, headache, difficulty breathing, sore throat, loss of taste or smell and muscle aches.
He announced that there are four urban clinics in the NCD that are now doing swabbing for COVID-19 tests for those with symptoms of COVID-19 where members of the public can also get their test results within a short time for free.
These are Badili, Tokarara, Morata and Gordon clinics.
These sites are part of the nine clinics that have been selected to participate in the Antigen (Ag) Rapid Diagnosis validation in NCD.
The public will be informed when the rest of the nine clinics begin swabbing too.
Other sites that are also providing routine swabbing for symptomatic clients are Pari clinic in Moresby South, and the Port Moresby General Hospital.
The general public are encouraged to utilize any of these services to check for COVID-19 infection.
Mr Manning said, “This Antigen test is easy and results will be given within 20 to 30 minutes. Further GeneXpert testing is then performed on positive samples to confirm if the patient has the coronavirus disease or not. The turnaround time is about an hour which is more convenient for isolation and contact tracing.”
He also confirmed that Rita Flynn is no longer swabbing but only tests the positive samples it receives from the urban sites to confirm, using GeneXpert. All negative samples from the Ag test are sent to Central Public Health Laboratory, for confirmation.
Meanwhile, four new cases of the Coronavirus disease was reported in the last 24 hours.
The latest cases were reported in the National Capital District.
All four cases are male between the ages of 45 to 56 years old.
They all had symptoms of COVID-19 at the time of testing.
Three of the four cases reside at Moresby North East, while one lives in Moresby South.
PNG’s reported COVID-19 cases now stands at 961, with 10 known deaths.