Hong Kong third wave: three labs picked to help mainland China medical team conduct mass Covid-19 testing in the city
- The trio of designated laboratories are all subsidiaries of mainland-listed enterprises
- They will play a key role in the free Covid-19 screening to be rolled out in Hong Kong, led by 60-strong medical team from over the border
Three Hong Kong-based laboratories listed in mainland China will team up with the dozens of experts crossing the border to carry out large-scale coronavirus testing in the city, a government source has confirmed, bringing the total number of private companies involved in the screening programme to five.
A seven-member medical team from the mainland is already in Hong Kong to lay the groundwork for free Covid-19 testing in the community and on Tuesday visited the three labs, which include Kingmed Diagnostics and Hong Kong Molecular Pathology Diagnostic Centre, both subsidiaries of enterprises listed on the mainland.
The third laboratory supporting the mainland team is Shenzhen-headquartered BGI, which was also one of three designated earlier to conduct testing for high-risk clusters in Hong Kong under a programme predating the offer of help from over the border.
The 60 clinical technicians from the mainland aimed to make use of the three newly designated laboratories to ramp up the city’s coronavirus testing capacity to 200,000 tests a day, from the current 20,000 to 30,000, their team leader Yu Dewen said on Monday.
Sunrise Diagnostic Centre, a unit under BGI, said its capacity alone could be increased fivefold, to 150,000 a day, under the pooling method, which involves testing five samples in a tube at one time.