The Government's sticking to its line that there's reluctance from border workers to switch to saliva testing for Covid-19, something that the National Party says isn’t good enough.
Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop said while there wasn’t universal demand for saliva testing, there was “certainly a whole group of people out there” that found Covid-19 nasal swab testing invasive.
“The Government should have been moving on this a lot sooner than they have done. It’s really incompetent that the Government hasn’t rolled this out sooner.”
He said it wasn’t good enough for Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins to say he was frustrated about the slow roll out of saliva testing.
Bishop said the capacity and technology to carry out mass saliva testing had been in New Zealand for months now.
“He is the Minister. The Government is in charge of this.”
Figures from Hipkins’ office, which were provided to Bishop, revealed that from January to June 14 this year, 386 voluntary saliva tests had been carried out on quarantine staff.
Bishop said the figure was “pathetic”.
Yesterday, 1 NEWS revealed leaked emails from a border worker that said they were desperate for saliva testing.
They claim many suffered from nose bleeds and anxiety with the nasal swabs. They expressed their concerns to the Ministry of Health multiple times, but the saliva tests weren’t yet in place.
The front-line workers told the Ministry of Health that many people are experiencing nose bleeds and anxiety.
Hipkins maintained today he was “frustrated” at the slow roll out of saliva testing and would “lean on” officials to pick up the speed.
“Saliva testing hasn’t been made as widely available as I’d like it to. The approvals are there, the ability to do it is there, the capacity to do it is there,” he said.
“Ultimately, we have said it’s voluntary. We can’t preempt decisions people might take.”
He said the reluctance to switch from a nasal swab test to saliva was largely due to the latter’s stricter prerequisites. For example, people can’t eat for some time before taking a test.
Saliva testing would also be required every second or third day, as opposed to a once-a-week nasal swab.
A Government-commissioned report into Covid-19 surveillance and testing in September recommended saliva testing be introduced “as soon as possible as part of the range of testing methods being conducted”.
In May, saliva testing was made available to all border workers .
Emerging research is showing saliva testing " can be as good as, or even better than a nasal swab ", Yale-based Kiwi scientist Anne Wyllie said in February.
In a submission to the New England Journal of Medicine, Wyllie and her team found that of 70 inpatients with Covid-19, "in some cases, saliva was better for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and actually, nasal swabs do have, also, a high risk of negatives as well".
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