Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers creates new testing locations

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.