The Romanian Red Cross, with the financial support of OMV Petrom, purchased 10 COVID rapid test equipments and 300 test kits. The devices have arrived in the country and are in the configuration procedure. These will be distributed to several hospitals in the country, in the next period, according to the recommendations given by the Ministry of Health, the only authority that has a centralized and updated record with the hospitals in Romania.

Rapid test devices are fully automated portable systems, of new generation, that use RT-PCR technique to detect genes that indicate the presence of SARS-COV-2 virus. Thanks to the revolutionary technique, the devices have a high degree of accuracy, eliminate the risk of contamination and reduce waiting times for a result. Thus, analysis timing is cut, from 24 h waiting times on conventional devices, to 40 minutes waiting time to find the result of a test on the rapid testing devices.

The test process involves: taking samples from the upper respiratory tract which are then processed in a single container for the purpose of extracting, amplifying and analyzing the nucleic acid present to obtain a conclusive result.