By NewsDesk  @infectiousdiseasenews

Spain’s Ministry of Health reported an additional 7026 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the country’s epidemic total to 124,736 cases. The Autonomous communities of Madrid and Catalonia have reported the most cases with 36,249 and 24,734, respectively.

The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, assured this week in his appearance at the Health and Consumption Commission that “the best thing at the moment is to do the maximum number of possible diagnostic tests on people who have symptoms ” Therefore, it has stated the objective of maximizing the performance of PCR and rapid tests.

With regard to the latter “this week,” he explained, “we have received a million of them who have a sensitivity of 80% after the person has been infected for 7 or more days, according to the analyzes carried out by the Carlos III Health Institute; in patients who have just started symptoms, the sensitivity is 64% “.

These rapid tests allow tests to be carried out in high-prevalence settings such as hospitals or residences, where there is a high probability of contagion, and to detect which people are infected if they test positive. If negative, they must perform a PCR. “Rapid tests detect an important part of positives, but those that give a negative require a PCR to rule out a false negative,” said the minister.

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Salvador Illa recalled on this same topic that “the Carlos III Health Institute has worked from the beginning together with all the Spanish PCR companies to jointly validate the techniques, which has made it possible for us from the health centers to be able to carry out between 15,000 and 20,000 daily tests in Spain at this time. ”

And he added: “This figure places us among the countries that carry out the most tests and we continue working to expand national production capacity so that our country can even be self-sufficient if necessary.”

In fact, the Carlos III Health Institute approved four companies last January so that they could carry out PCR with which they are working to activate their production.

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