Shortages of virus test materials ‘critical’: UN lab chief

SEIBERSDORF, AFP: Shortages of materials needed in tests for the novel coronavirus remain “critical”, according to the head of a UN lab, which is supplying countries with COVID-19 detection kits.

In particular the chemical reagents for the tests are still in short supply, said Giovanni Cattoli, Head of the Animal Production and Health Laboratory run jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“There is indeed in the global market a shortage of some items, particularly reagents, because there are demands from all over the world,” Cattoli told AFP this week during a tour of the laboratory at Seibersdorf, 40 kilometres outside Vienna.

“The situation is still critical,” he said. “We are working... to accelerate purchase and investigate if there are alternative reagents.” The tests the lab sends out use the nuclear-derived RT-PCR technology, which is now common for novel coronavirus detection and can give results within hours.

Cattoli said one of the lessons of the crisis was “that we need not to rely only on a single type of test but to have a portfolio of tests and a portfolio of reagents in order to be prepared to have a plan B and possibly a plan C in order to respond effectively and rapidly”. The IAEA has received requests from 119 Member States for test equipment to supply more than 200 laboratories, Cattoli added.