By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Dr Duane Sands said officials are examining options to increase COVID-19 PCR test supplies, suggesting this includes an option to buy supplies from the Cayman Islands, which recently acquired 200,000 kits from a South Korean company.

The Cayman Islands has since sold 35,000 PCR test kits to Bermuda and 20,000 to Barbados.

Asked yesterday if The Bahamas is looking to get kits from the Cayman Islands, Dr Sands said: “We are looking at all options.”

The coveted polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test kit is considered the gold standard of COVID-19 diagnostic tools and acquiring them is thought to be a difficult and competitive process.

At a press conference last week, health officials were asked about the Cayman Islands’ purchase. At the time, Dr Sands said details of it were unknown and he suspected the country had obtained rapid test kits, which are difficult to validate and have high rates of false positives.

However, Cayman Islands chief medical officer, Dr John Lee said at a recent press conference that the 200,000 tests, which cost $4.4 million, are not immunoglobulin-based.

“We’re not doing that,” Dr Lee said. “Our testing kits that have arrived to give us a very large capacity are for reagents for polymerisation and that is the test mechanism that we’re using at the moment.”

He said the tests passed their validation “with no problems whatsoever”.

Cayman officials said local businessmen provided the initial contacts to help secure their supply of PCR test kits.

The Cayman Islands has a population of about 65,000. The country has committed to keeping 100,000 test kits for its own use. According to the Cayman Compass, the country is selling the remaining kits at cost. At last report, the country had 45,000 kits to sell.

With its vast numbers of test kits, the country’s clinical panel has agreed to relax its COVID-19 testing protocol.

“We will loosen the ability for us to test and will move away from the World Health Organisation’s recommendations to test more widely,” Dr Lee said at a press conference.

Bahamians have been clamouring for more testing and local infectious disease expert Dr Nikkiah Forbes said last week this country’s high COVID-19 mortality rate is likely because of its limited testing capacity.

“Those (COVID-19 cases that died),” she said, “they were older in age and they had other medical comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension, obesity and lung problems like asthma. I have no doubt that as we increase our capacity to do testing we will see that mortality rate balance out but this is a reflection of the section of the population we have been able to test, those with moderate and severe manifestations.”