The Health Services Authority has commenced genome sequencing of local COVID-19 cases making Cayman the first in the region, outside of the Caribbean Public Health Agency, to conduct such testing, Governor Martyn Roper has said.
Roper said this specialised testing puts Cayman into a different league, as no one else in the Caribbean is doing it. The technology will be key to determining the strains of COVID-19 present in positive cases picked up through PCR testing.
“Other territories and countries are sending their samples to CARPHA, the regional body. But we’re able to do this on island. It’s only just come online so we weren’t able quite to say this has been working and it’s been working well. But we got ourselves into the right place,” Roper said when he appeared on the Cayman Compass weekly talk show The Resh Hour on Thursday.
HSA is expected to issue a media statement on the sequencing today.
Roper said the sequencing is a…
