Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers creates new testing locations
AI: Summary ©
The lab emphasizes following protocols and providing a questionnaire to determine high risk travel areas. The history of travel and the pandemic are also discussed. The importance of history and the history of travel to determine who needs to wear masks and avoid contact with someone who has symptoms. The host emphasizes reducing contact and testing for COVID-19, as well as reducing contact with patients who have symptoms. The importance of testing and getting a test from the gift of the givers is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
The testing kit will be available in more locations in gauteng as
early as next week, it will allow South African healthcare
professionals to test at least 16 samples in 45 minutes. This is
according to gift of the givers founder, Dr Imtiaz Suleiman. It
comes amid an escalation in the number of South Africans
requesting testing for the coronavirus, as well as a current
backlog in processing. To tell us more, we're joined via Skype by Dr
Imtiaz Suleiman, Doc, thanks for joining us. Great to have you as
always on the program. Good morning. Lian, thank you very
much. This is that, that kit we've been hearing about, where you
literally have your test 45 minutes later the results are
through. So how did you get hold of them? Talk to us about sort of
the background to you putting these out to South Africans? Well,
basically, it's not me. You feel the givers are not running a lab.
We are in touch with people who are running labs. And the lady
that has been running the lab called me last week, and she said
a company called her and said the previous machines that they had
their own machines that normally tested the human papilloma virus.
That machine, a new cartridge has been made for it in America. It's
approved by the America, by the FDA in America, and it does what
South Africa wants. It does PCR testing. There's two types of
tests. One is a pan prick test, I mean a finger prick test, which is
not accepted by the country, and the other one is to retest the
antigen directly, or the virus directly. It's called PCR. So I
asked, Is PCR? She said, Yes, the company then confirmed that after
the first of April, the first cartridges will be in South
Africa, and 16 of those samples can go into one machine and you
can get the result in 45 minutes. For all 16 samples, if you have
three machines, you can get 48 results in 45 minutes. This is,
this is fantastic news, and purely because it seems like the testing
time and the testing kits are that are available, not only in South
Africa, but nation or globally, are in issue that we cannot test
enough people and get the results through fast enough. So when we
talk numbers, what are we looking at? How? How many can you test a
day?
But if it's 45
tests, 48 tests, in 45 minutes, you can do a lot, but although you
can do that many in one testing you can't do that many swabs in
one testing site. If the swabs come from from other areas, it
will be fine, but it can't be done from one side. So we've been
appointed by the minister to the lab. The gift of the givers has
now been called, opted onto the ministerial lab testing committee
officially as part of the lab testing committee, and in the
meeting yesterday, a lot of the labs were represented there, and
some of them said they got backlogs for eight to 413 days on
the testing the results are not coming out in 24 hours. Some
people are even getting results like 13 days later, when a
quarantine period is already up, so the demand is huge in all the
labs to the country. But the problem is now, with the lockdown,
people are going to have more anxiety and ticket the virus is
spreading faster, and you will get a much bigger demand for the kids
and worldwide, it's a problem. Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's get some
details now, because we know that these, these tests, are quite
expensive. I mean, some some are talking around the price of of
about one and a half 1000 Rand. Now, you actually are offering
this at half the price for 750 Rand, but strictly to those who
need it. So it's great that you're offering that huge discount. But
how do you determine who needs the test and not
it is, again, you follow the NIC guidelines. This is not something
you do yourself. In a matter like this, you have to follow protocols
that have been set down. The protocol has been set down by the
NiCd. And there's a questionnaire each person who calls in. It's an
appointment basis. You just can't walk in. It's an appointment
basis. You phone in and you give your symptoms and you give a
history. The first one is, have you come from a high risk country?
Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, Switzerland, America, for those
the high risk countries. The second one is, have you come into
contact with somebody who's positive those? Those are the
first two criteria I vetted the third one to say that if anybody
has flown even from a low risk country to Dubai Airport, you're
high risk because people from the high risk countries cross that
airport, you know, and it's important that that category is
also considered, and that if you are, the point is, if you don't
have symptoms, stay at home, don't copper testing. We wasting the
kids. But if you develop sustained systems with symptoms within 14
days, then you come for the test. Okay, so high risk travel areas,
those who have symptoms, and particularly the symptoms we're
referring to, is because a lot of people talk to very different
symptoms that people go through. I mean, some some may get a fever,
some might not. Some get a cough. Some get.
Sore throat. Some get a, you know, typical flu symptoms, and yet,
it's just the flu and not coronavirus. So, you know, how,
how do you determine who can come and who shouldn't come? In the
context, the history of travel is the most important, okay, but it's
very difficult to identify between a different type of flu and, you
know, the coronavirus, it's almost impossible. And that's why it's
it's you have the waiting period. And the most significant aspect of
all that is, let's put it more simply, you're staying in
kayalicha. You haven't had contact with anybody from the rest of the
world. You haven't had traveled any place. You're not working
anywhere. You're unemployed. You've been sitting in your home
for the last five weeks. Suddenly, you have the weather changes. You
have a runny nose, you have fever, you have joint aches, you have a
sore throat, you don't have coronavirus. You haven't had
contact with anybody who hasn't come to that area. There's no
contact. The starting point is, Has somebody travel overseas?
Because that virus did not start in South Africa. It is important.
It came from international travel. And if you see the first figures
up to the first 200 plus, almost every person there has it has come
from from some other part of the world that had the virus. It never
initiated in
South Africa. I suppose what's left now is to ask you, where are
these testing stations? I believe that at one point, the initial one
was in Mayfair, Johannesburg, but there are going to be others. Will
there be drive throughs as well? Because we've seen some of these,
and they've worked very successfully in other countries.
The drive through way of testing. We have the one in FA West running
from the 16th of March, with a lot of people coming there. And
exactly what you're saying, we do need a drive through test. And we
only put up the first one to see if we always experiment one first
to see if the neighbors are going to complain. But if there's no
contamination. We don't want hundreds of people coming because
imagine, remember, it's also social distancing. You've got to
reduce contact. We've got to reduce the risk. That's why a
driver is much better. We've been talking towards University
professor Adam Habib has agreed to give us a site. We're seeing it
today, and if that's fine, it's workable, then we will use that as
a second site. We've got a third right running a site, running
Roshni. This afternoon, we'll be starting at a site near the Ahmad
Al Qadi hospital, not in hospital itself. We don't patients to start
getting fever and excitement is and panic. It's a distance away
from the hospital where a private has been given to us a space for
the hospital where there's no contact and through the drive
through, it's far safer because nobody gets out of the car, and
that's why you got rid of appointment. You can't just rock
up there. We won't see you. Yeah? This for your dress and for the
rest of the people around you. So you test you once you the car, 30
seconds per person, and you want, yeah? This is in Johannesburg,
from what I'm understanding, plans to go nationwide. Yes, I said in
Ahmedabad hospital. Is in Durban. It's in German. We're looking for
a site. We're looking for a site in in Cape Town, as I said, we
can't rush it for several reasons. We got to see the challenges, and
of course, the test kits. Because the new test kit hasn't arrived
yet, we can't excite the people and start making all this test and
suddenly you put a swab away for eight days, which won't be
efficient, you don't be effective. So we don't give people fault so
and say, Yes, test in so many places when you don't have enough
kids, so you want to roll it out prudently, step at a time. But
Cape Town is a site with us. Lanes have been asked. It matters within
us, and few other sites. And by next week, once we know for a fact
that those kids are coming from America, then we can increase the
speed of putting up sites. Good Doctor suluman, as we wrap it up,
you said phone, there's a telephone number to phone, to book
an appointment, to make you know, to tell this, and all of those
things. What is that number that we can phone for now you can use
over 807
86911,
and then thereafter, we'll give it a specific they will give you a
specific phone number of the testing site. Once many more sites
are put up, I just want to clear one other thing. Again, this money
is not coming to us. It's gift of the gift is not charging 752
people. Gift of the givers has facilitated labs. The charge is
for them, for the lab testing, the career costs, the nurse that's
hired, the consumers that are used, the protective gear that
they have to pay for. They've all agreed virtually to bring it as
low down as possible. Money doesn't come to us. We'll just
facilitate it so it's easier and cheaper for other people to pay
for it. Doctor, thanks very much for talking to us here on the
program. Important information for you that number, again, 08, 107,
86911,
that's the number you can phone. They'll put you in the right
direction. If you need to try and get a test from the gift of the
givers that have set this up. They are just initiating this for
everybody, and of course, they are trying their best to get as many
tests done so.