ABC has already performed 14 tests in homes and day care centers in the Algarve and Alentejo

O Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC) has already carried out, until yesterday, 14 tests to employees and users of homes, as well as employees of day care centers, in the Algarve region, Baixo Alentejo and Alentejo Litoral, announced today Nuno Marques, director of ABC.

The official was speaking during the visit that Ana Mendes Godinho, minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, made this afternoon to the Quinta dos Pardais Children's Center, in Albufeira, owned by the local Santa Casa da Misericórdia, one of the crèches that will open in the next day 18.

Nuno Marques added that, in nursing homes in the Algarve and in all structures associated with them, 8152 tests have been carried out so far. «We did, therefore, much more than the 6000 that we had initially planned to make».

In the 105 institutions tested (users and employees), «we only had one case of a positive home [that of the Mercy of Boliqueime], but which identified itself in time, which allowed its adequate isolation'.

All other tests at the other Algarve institutions for the elderly were negative. «I never liked the term “negative” so much», confessed the director of ABC.

In the Algarve, all that's left is to track down employees of “some home support services, it's really the only thing missing. It's just that, in the meantime, we had to move forward with the crèches», explained Margarida Flores, director of the Regional Center for Social Security, who was also present.

In Baixo Alentejo, 1451 tests have been carried out in 17 institutions dedicated to the elderly. “We are continuing to work. We are adjusting the plans with the daily contacts we make with these structures», explained the head of ABC.

As for the Alentejo Litoral, the tests in homes will start on the 15th of May. Nuno Marques stressed that, in this region, "there are no identified risk situations for the time being". If there were, the screening would have already advanced.

Patrícia Seromenho, provider of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia in Albufeira, with the minister and regional director of Social Security in assistance

With regard to day care, a sector where there are «a much larger number of institutions», part of which will already open on Monday, the 18th, the director of ABC stressed that it was necessary to make «an enormous amount of planning, to achieve, in the space of week and half, respond to everything», again in the Algarve, Baixo Alentejo and its coast.

«Until today, we already have two thirds of the tests carried out, only yesterday 599 tests were carried out in the Algarve», he revealed. In all, all employees of 129 crèches in the Algarve will be tracked, in order to «reduce as much as possible the risk of contagion» when they open.

Unlike what happened with institutions for the elderly, where the ABC team would go to each one of them, in the case of the tests of daycare workers that will open on the 18th, they are the ones who go to the centers drive-thru installed next to the Algarve Stadium and Portimão Arena.

"In a day, we have the capacity to collect 500 samples", in these two structures, he added.

Nuno Marques underlined that the work of the ABC, in partnership with local authorities, institutions and the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, is «always concerned with being one step ahead of possible complications. We're going to continue to win this battle [against Covid-19] by being one step ahead.”

Minister Ana Mendes Godinho praised the «extraordinary work of the ABC», stressing that its pioneering spirit in home screening turned out to be a good practice that is already being replicated across the country.

The ruler, starting from the example of the Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC), a consortium that brings together the University of Algarve and the University Hospital Center of the Algarve, called attention to the «reinvention of the academic world», which, «in view of the problem of homes, left the laboratories and went into the field» . And that, later, he was able to «share the know-how among all».

In the country, he added, "65 thousand people have already been tested in homes, in a month and a half."

Now, "in view of the uncertainty that is currently being experienced, when are we going to have a vaccine?, when are we going to have solutions?, it is necessary to reopen in a cautious way, so that we can resume economic activity, which is crucial for the country."

The reopening of day care centers is a step towards this recovery, hence the program that, across the country, the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security, in partnership with several universities, launched to test employees. So far, revealed the minister, and in just over a week, there are already "10 thousand tests carried out on daycare workers across the country."

Returning to work, which was even pioneering at the national level, that the Algarve Biomedical Center has been developing, Ana Mendes Godinho made a point of stressing that «the whole Algarve is honored by what ABC is doing».

The minister's visit to Albufeira served to learn about the adaptations that the nursery at the Quinta dos Pardais Children's Center is making, so that it can reopen its doors next Monday, the 18th.

But it was also used to sign an addendum to the protocol between the Ministry of Ana Mendes Godinho and ABC, which initially only provided for screening in nursing homes, but which now includes tests in day care centers in the Algarve, Baixo Alentejo and Alentejo Litoral.

Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação