Panama changes strategy and applies COVID-19 tests to asymptomatic patients
The health authorities are expanding the taking of tests to the asymptomatic in an effort to identify and isolate those infected with COVID-19 and their contacts in Panama.
Until now, the strategy applied by the Panamanian health authorities had been to carry out the diagnostic test only to people with various symptoms of the disease and to their contacts.
The change of direction occurs when the authorities are resuming the gradual process of economic reopening, which is expected to bring an increase in infections, as happened in June after a first attempt at reactivation, and as is happening in other countries of the world.
In the midst of many limitations this week the retail trade and hairdressers and barber shops began to operate, from next Monday other activities will do so and also the restrictions on mobility in the Panamanian capital and its surroundings will be relaxed, the area where half of the 4.2 million inhabitants of the country live.
To be sure that nothing out of the ordinary happens during the economic opening, we must continue looking for positive cases and isolate them, said the member of the Advisory Council on COVID-19, Francisco Sánchez Cárdenas.
The former Minister of Health also told the newspaper La Prensa that the diagnostic test has to be done to everyone, because the population is afraid right now of going to hospitals, and there is no other option than to go to the streets to look for them.
The expert also assured that there is capacity to carry out between 4,000 and 5,000 daily tests in Panama, which has been recognized by Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as one of the countries in the region that has made the most efforts since the beginning of the pandemic to strengthen testing.
The barrier of 5,000 tests in one day is a record that Panama reached for the first time last Wednesday and that it has repeated four times this week.
The change of direction occurs when the authorities are resuming the gradual process of economic reopening, which is expected to bring an increase in infections, as happened in June after a first attempt at reactivation, and as is happening in other countries of the world.
In the midst of many limitations this week the retail trade and hairdressers and barber shops began to operate, from next Monday other activities will do so and also the restrictions on mobility in the Panamanian capital and its surroundings will be relaxed, the area where half of the 4.2 million inhabitants of the country live.
To be sure that nothing out of the ordinary happens during the economic opening, we must continue looking for positive cases and isolate them, said the member of the Advisory Council on COVID-19, Francisco Sánchez Cárdenas.
The former Minister of Health also told the newspaper La Prensa that the diagnostic test has to be done to everyone, because the population is afraid right now of going to hospitals, and there is no other option than to go to the streets to look for them.
The expert also assured that there is capacity to carry out between 4,000 and 5,000 daily tests in Panama, which has been recognized by Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as one of the countries in the region that has made the most efforts since the beginning of the pandemic to strengthen testing.
The barrier of 5,000 tests in one day is a record that Panama reached for the first time last Wednesday and that it has repeated four times this week.