The number of Covid-19 cases has continued to increase in recent weeks on the Big Island. The village Voara, a screening center on the outskirts of the capital, has been taken by storm in recent days and the wait for the results is causing many Antananarivo residents to lose patience.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Laetitia Bezain
In the district of Mahamasina, in the center of the capital, they are about thirty to wait in front of the direction of the health watch, most of them exasperated. A week after performing her test, Santatra still has not received the text message to send her the result. An expectation that compromises his income: ” I moved here because I cannot return to work until I have the result certificate indicating that I am negative. I haven’t been able to work and earn money for a week. I finally got the result. “
Patricia, secretary, who took her test nine days ago was not so lucky. She deplores a lack of organization since the upsurge in coronavirus cases: ” I have been here before yesterday, but there were a lot of people who tested positive. We all wait in the same place. I left because we don’t know who is sick or not and we can transmit the disease to each other! Today I waited four hours and still have no results. I have to come back tomorrow. “
Long wait with positive cases
In the village of Voara, a large screening center on the outskirts of Antananarivo, several hundred samples are taken every day, indicates a source within the Ministry of Health. And the laboratories are struggling to keep up.
This is where Tojo, a welder, went ten days ago: “ There were so many people that I couldn’t see the front of the line. I was told I would have the result in four days, but received nothing. I went back this morning, but they redirected me here. I am negative, but we are glued to each other and I just saw that a person who was patient next to me had a positive result. “
Contacted, a source within the Ministry of Health indicates that negative results are normally transmitted by SMS and positive by phone calls and specifies that erroneous contacts prevent the teams of the ministry from reaching the patients.
The Ministry of Health stresses that people who show clinical signs of the coronavirus should not wait for their test results to seek treatment.
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