Cyprus Mail
GreeceWorld

Coronavirus: Greece to hand out free self-testing kits from next month

dowadnload (5)

Greece will start distributing free do-it-yourself COVID-19 tests next month, the government said on Saturday, as it seeks to alleviate pressure on a healthcare system facing a stubbornly high level of new infections.

Everyone with a social security number will be entitled to four of the test kits per month, and they will be distributed at pharmacies.

“It is a new tool in the country’s battle against the pandemic. The tests will allow better epidemiological monitoring, and of course prevention,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The government said the do-it-yourself test kits have an accuracy rate of about 95%-99%. They are easier to do than rapid tests, needing nasal and saliva samples instead of the nasopharyngeal sample used in rapid tests.

People who get a positive result will be instructed to report it to health authorities for the monitoring and tracing of COVID-19 infections.

The government said Greece would be the first European country to make such test kits so easily available and free of charge.

Greece will lift some COVID-19 lockdown restrictions next week as part of a plan to gradually reopen the economy and relieve national fatigue even as its hospitals remain under severe pressure.

On Friday, health authorities reported 2,785 new coronavirus cases and 64 deaths, bringing total infections to 233,079 since the first case was detected in February last year and the death toll to 7,361.

Follow the Cyprus Mail on Google News

Related Posts

Israeli strikes on Rafah raise fear assault could begin

Reuters News Service

Officials board ship that hit Baltimore bridge, divers search for bodies

Reuters News Service

Nearly 100 people still missing after Moscow concert attack

Reuters News Service

Several dead in coach crash on German motorway

Reuters News Service

British satisfaction with healthcare drops to new low

Reuters News Service

Russian investigators to study request to probe Western involvement in ‘terrorism’

Reuters News Service