Persons suspected of being infected with Covid-19 should not go to the testing center located next to the Estádio Algarve without a doctor or health authorities giving them a formal indication to do so.
That is, before accessing the this center, which is ready and it will come into operation tomorrow morning, suspected cases will have to contact the SNS24 hotline, through which they will then be referenced and guided.
"Anyone who comes here without being referenced does not take the test," said Paulo Morgado, president of the Algarve Regional Health Administration, at the press conference that has just taken place at the place where the two tents where the crops will be harvested are already installed. at the main door of the Algarve Stadium.
The new "crop center for analysis" will, according to Paulo Morgado, work on a system of drive thru, in which people who are suspected cases arrive, after being referenced, in their car and always travel around the circuit without leaving the vehicle.
Nuno Marques, president of Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC), an entity that, with ARS Algarve and the Chambers of Faro and Loulé, who operates this centre, explained that, next to the access to the main entrance to the Algarve Stadium, there will be a first control post for the authorities, who then forward or not the vehicle with the person to the centre, made up of two tents.
In the first tent, the person has to identify themselves to the doctor who will be there (duly protected), but without opening the car window and placing their identification document against the window, from the inside.
After confirming that the possible patient is referred by the health authorities, the doctor communicates by walkie talkie with his colleagues in the next tent and the car advances to the second tent, where it enters. There there will be another team of health professionals (also duly protected) to carry out the collection.
At regular intervals, the harvests will be transported in a truck prepared for this purpose, to the Dr. Laura Ayres Regional Laboratory, which is right across the street, and where the actual analyzes will be carried out.
“With this system, we are taking people out of hospitals to do analyses, and people themselves are better protected, because they reduce their risk of contagion. Here, people do not have physical contact with anyone, they come in their car and then follow it to their house», explained Nuno Marques.
The official added that yesterday "we were here in training all day, to train the best way to harvest, in the safest way" for users and health professionals.
The president of ARS Algarve also said that in the Algarve there is a current installed capacity to carry out «300 tests per day». Until today, and since March 10, "300 tests have been carried out and fortunately very few positives". Tests continue to be carried out also in hospitals in Faro and Portimão, but this new center makes it possible to strengthen regional capacity.
For now, the testing center at Estádio Algarve will be open every day, from 9 am to 21 pm. "Then we will see if it will have to work 00 hours a day".
Paulo Morgado announced that "we already have a plan to increase the capacity" to carry out tests, with the support of private entities, the ABC, the University of Algarve and the Câmaras de Loulé and Faro.
For now, he explained, suspicious people from Barlavento "come to take their test here", although they are also already "being taken at the hospital in Portimão".
Anyway, admitted the president of the ARS, "if this center works well" and if necessary, it could also open "a center in Barlavento".
"In the north. there are already centers working like this”, recalled Paulo Morgado, who added that “this test is rigorous”, being “the only one approved by the World Health Organization”.
At this moment, underlined Paulo Morgado, «we have relatively few cases a day» (from yesterday to today there were only 4 new cases in the Algarve, reaching a total of 35). "But the future will bring more cases, so we are already preparing ourselves", still speaking of the work being done by the health authorities to "contain the few transmission chains that we have in the region".
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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