BAGHDAD, March 30 -- The new PCR (polymerase chain reaction) lab built by the Chinese team of experts in the Iraqi capital Baghdad has completed around 720 tests on Sunday, relieving pressure for Iraq's Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) to identify COVID-19 after a technical problem occurred.
On March 25, the new PCR lab was inaugurated in the Medical City in downtown Baghdad, with the aim of increasing the urgently needed nucleic acid detection capacity to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the war-torn country.
"We had a technical problem yesterday in the central lab," Mohammed Ghanim Mahdi, who is in charge of the new lab and also director of the National Center of the Teaching Laboratories of the Medical City, told Xinhua on Monday.
However, the CPHL's technical problem on Sunday evening prompted the PCR lab technicians to continue their work, which was supposed to end at 8 p.m., but they were forced to resume the work from 10 p.m.
"We have worked to compensate the delay of testing cases of the central lab, and we have received 560 samples from CPHL to test, in addition to 160 others received by our PCR lab received by the Medical City and from Rusafa health department to be tested by us in one day," Mahdi said, who has worked overnight with technicians in the lab and has not slept for 24 hours.
Mahdi said "imagine if the technical problem happens without the existing of this new lab, it will be a disaster because there will be no results for a week or more."
Earlier in the day, Yang Honghui, a member of the Chinese expert team and the technical director of Daan Gene Co., Ltd. of Sun Yat-sen University, gave guidance in the new PCR lab and went to the CPHL to check the technical problem.
Ghada Ghalib Falih, director of CPHL, told Xinhua last Thursday that the central lab has been operating to test COVID-19 under mounting pressure for dozens of days.
According to her, the number of testing conducted has gradually increased from around 20 to more than 400 suspected samples per day.
"You can imagine what is happening," Ghada said. "All the experts, staff and machines are working; at night I have to say 'stop' otherwise the machine will be on fire."
Ahead of the establishment of the new Chinese-built lab, CPHL is the only lab in Iraq that has the PCR ability to test and confirm COVID-19 cases, which is currently relying on diagnostic kits donated by the World Health Organization.
However, the central lab faces shortages of testing kits. Ghada expects to use the diagnostic kits soon brought by the Chinese team of experts.
Iraqi health experts hail the new Chinese-built lab is meant to be instrumental in increasing Iraq's ability to test larger number of suspected cases of COVID-19, and is planned to dramatically reduce the pressure on the central lab.
Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday confirmed 83 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 630. The death toll rose to 46.
The Iraqi government has taken several measures recently to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, including extending a nationwide curfew to April 11.
To help Iraq cope with the coronavirus spread, a Chinese team of seven experts has been working with their Iraqi counterparts since March 7 in the country.