The Health Minister Dechen Wangmo said Bhutan has done 13,000 tests per million which is quite high compared to other countries.
She said it is more important to know how test is done rather than how many test kits the country has. Currently, Bhutan has more than enough testing kits due to His Majesty The King’s concern and actions on containing the spread of COVID-19.
Lyonpo shared that in other countries the test is done only on a person who shows COVID-19 symptoms, whereas in Bhutan, every individual is tested, especially the travellers coming into Bhutan, including all the health staff who run the tests on the people coming from abroad.
Even a person with normal cough and cold and those who are in the quarantine facilities are tested two to three times.
Lyonpo said around 100 sets of PPE are used per day, which includes mask, hand gloves, head cover and shoe cover. One team in the hospital has to wear PPE thrice in a day. One team finishes Nu 78,000 worth of equipment per day. This comes to Nu 450,000 for 12 days for one patient.
There is enough PPE and even BHUs are supplied with PPE, and hospitals in 20 dzongkhags, Lyonpo shared.
The unit cost of a RT-PCR test is around Nu 3,500 and the unit cost of each rapid test is around Nu 1,000.