Coronavirus testing in Estonia has cost more than €2.5 million
So far, €2.58 million has been spent on testing for the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Estonia. As of Monday, 55,784 tests have been performed across the country.
Broken down per test this equates to approximately €46 each, but includes all associated costs, such as staff readiness, the cost of tests and laboratory work.
At the start of the epidemic in Estonia at the start of March, testing was carried out by the Infectious Diseases Laboratory of the Health Board which cost €163,750 in total.
As the disease began to spread, more samples needed to be taken and tested faster, and the logistics were redesigned to include private companies Medicum and Synlab. A total of €2,413,400 has been paid to them.
Jelena Tomasova, Deputy Director General of the Health Board, said: "Testing agreements with Medicum and Synlab include a bundled service: coronavirus testing, sampling (mobile sampling sites, mobile teams, special brigades for large-scale testing, eg in nursing homes, etc.) and transport and laboratory services and customer service and reporting (testing time reporting, analysis transmission of laboratory notifications to the information system)."
The service fee of the contract partners includes nine test brigades, 14 test sites and the readiness to test every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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Editor: Helen Wright
