Tender Advertisement #1141655

Proposal to strengthen the capacity of four PICTs (Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati and Cook Is) to be able to offer better testing capacity by getting RT-PCR set up in addition to the GeneXpert.
RT-PCR is the accepted gold standard for testing and the advantages of this will be that the country will have an additional method for testing which can be used for quality control measures. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, it will increase the range of tests that PICTs can do in country. In addition to COVID-19, RT-PCR will provide them with the ability to test for arboviruses including dengue, Zika and Chikungunya, leptospirosis, measles and others. Currently PICTs have to send these tests away and can wait for up to two or three weeks or longer for results to come back. The ability to test in-country for these diseases will be a significant improvement in the preparedness and response capacity of these PICTs.