MP SPEAKS | The federal government must take pro-active steps to ensure not just sufficient supplies of medical items especially the availability of Covid-19 RTK self-test kits nationwide, but also to make sure prices of such test kits remain affordable and not see a sudden spike in prices especially when demands for it increases in view of the Omicron wave nationwide.

One of the fundamentals to “shorten the surge period” of Omicron is the need for quick and fast testing due to the variant’s swift pace of transmission, which again places the importance of the shift to the self-administered tests from PCR testing, which has long been considered the gold standard for detecting Covid-19.

Such transition is so important to ensure infection detection at labs does not buckle under the strain of unprecedented numbers of cases with many of these health facilities already facing a shortage of staff.

An uncontrollable runaway Omicron outbreak will definitely...