JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

UNC calls for over-the-counter COVID-19 testing kits

by

Akash Samaroo
1528 days ago
20210521
CARONI EAST MP DR RISHAD SEECHARAN

CARONI EAST MP DR RISHAD SEECHARAN

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Health to al­low phar­ma­cies to sell over-the-counter COVID-19 test­ing kits, in an ef­fort to ease what the par­ty is call­ing an over­bur­dened and over­worked health­care sys­tem.

On Wednes­day, dur­ing the Health Min­istry’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh sought to dis­cour­age use of the kits and even men­tioned the pos­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing to the courts, a phar­ma­cy that has been sell­ing the over-the-counter COVID test kits.

But yes­ter­day, the UNC’s shad­ow Min­is­ter of Health, Dr Rishad Seecha­ran, said the test­ing kits should be en­cour­aged in light of what the virus is do­ing to the coun­try.

“Since the 15th of De­cem­ber, 2020, the US Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion is­sued emer­gency-use au­tho­ri­sa­tion for over-the-counter COVID-19 tests in all ma­jor phar­ma­cy chains in Amer­i­ca. These in­clude the El­lume home test, the Ab­bot anti­gen self-test and the Pixle home col­lec­tion kit, they do not re­quire pre­scrip­tion and they are in­tend­ed to use in per­sons with or with­out symp­toms. This can be con­duct­ed at their own home. Why would you be against that?”

Seecha­ran ques­tioned if there is a more sin­is­ter mo­tive be­hind the Gov­ern­ment’s stance on the test­ing kits.

“How can you be so small-mind­ed? What it seems to me is that you are ac­tu­al­ly ask­ing peo­ple not to get test­ed for COVID-19. Is this a means to re­duce the abil­i­ty of cit­i­zens to de­ter­mine their COVID-19 sta­tus?

“With hun­dreds of cas­es dai­ly and the death toll ris­ing, the num­bers do not paint a pret­ty pic­ture for you and your ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Seecha­ran said the Health Min­is­ter’s wor­ry that peo­ple would use these tests and then skip the pub­lic health sys­tem, there­fore, evad­ing na­tion­al health pro­to­cols, is mis­guid­ed.

The Ca­roni East MP an­tic­i­pates the op­po­site out­come.

He said asymp­to­matic peo­ple who test pos­i­tive on the home kit would then seek an of­fi­cial test from a cer­ti­fied lab.

Seecha­ran said if peo­ple had this fa­cil­i­ty avail­able to them ear­li­er, the re­cent spike in cas­es fol­low­ing the East­er hol­i­days would have not hap­pened.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to reach out to Deyals­ingh but up to press time he did not re­ply.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored