Coronavirus Testing Now Available in Georgia

It is now possible to determine the diagnosis of the new type of coronavirus, known by the scientists as simply 2019_nCoV, in Tbilisi, Georgia in the laboratory of Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research.

“Yesterday we got additional reagents from the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology. We lacked them to determine the final laboratory diagnosis of this disease,” said the Director-General of the National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC).

The head of NCDC has also reported that 6 people are being observed. The tests of two of those patients were sent to a laboratory in Rotterdam and the results say that they haven’t been infected with the Wuhan coronavirus. The tests were also proven negative in the Lugar laboratory.

The current statistics of coronavirus report 20 438 total cases. The virus was detected in two dozen countries other than China, their number of infected patients stands at 163. 8 of these people haven’t traveled to China.

With the 64 new fatalities as of midnight on Monday - the biggest daily increase since the virus emerged, the death toll rose to 425 at least. There have been two cases of death from the coronavirus outside mainland China. On Tuesday morning Hong Kong reported its first death. The victim was a 39-year-old man from Wuhan who, as the authorities have reported, had “underlying health problems.”

By Nini Dakhundaridze

Image source: Radio Tavisupleba.