Plans to conduct up to 4,500 Covid-19 lab tests per day in Ireland

The head of the Health Service Executive has said that Irish laboratories will have the capacity to carry out 4,500 tests per day, but that this will be dependent on the availability of the testing reagent.

Paul Reid said that as well as the National Virus Reference Laboratory, 18 hospitals are now testing, and other labs like one for the Department of Agriculture and Enfer will also add to capacity from the end of next week.

He said labs had only been carrying out between 2,000 and 2,500 tests, but that late last week testing had been constrained to 1,500 tests per day.

The results from the first swabs that were sent off to Germany to be tested last week arrived back on Friday.

Mr. Reid said that that German laboratory is now completing 2,000 tests per day for Ireland, but that the HSE is "still looking at other EU solutions as we continue to source the reagent supply".

He said that the supply of reagent is a "very significant world wide challenge" and that there is competition to secure a supply.

The HSE is now in ongoing negotiations with firms in Ireland about supplying this critical part of the testing process.

Mr. Reid said they are making "some progress" with some firms and that discussions will continue.

A supply of reagent has been secured from "other international markets" and Mr. Reid said they will not be confident until they go through a risk assessment and quality testing at the end of next week.

The HSE has signed an agreement with all private hospital groups to give it full use of Private hospitals during the Covid-19 crisis.

There are now 5,000 extra beds available between public and private, 1,100 isolation beds at Citywest, and a further 450 overflow acute beds are currently being constructed at the Dublin hotel.

Mr. Reid said another 1200 isolation will also be put in place around the country.

"Work has also been done to increase the number of ventilators available here. We already have 1,100 of these between public and private hospitals."

Mr Reid said that 25 new ventilators have already arrived and been dispatched to St James and the Mater Hospital, and that a further 225 will arrive this week. He said a total of 1300 ventilators will be delivered by the middle of April.

He said that ICU capacity is "our biggest challenge" during this crisis. He said the health service will be utilising ICU beds, high dependency beds, theatre and post operation beds to give us a capacity of "over 800 equivalent of critical care beds".

Training up staff to support this increased ICU capacity will also be a challenge, he said.