The Government of the Canary Islands has received this Tuesday two shipments acquired directly by the regional Executive to deal with the spread of Covid-19, which include 58,200 diagnostic kits for the disease. This will allow increasing the number of tests that were being carried out, which has been limited by the shortage of material. In fact, according to the latest data provided by the Ministry of Health, since the beginning of the crisis and until last weekend, tests had only been carried out on 8,000 people throughout the archipelago.
The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has confirmed the landing of these two planes that have unloaded sanitary material. One of the planes landed in Gran Canaria at 4:30 p.m. with a shipment that includes 1.5 million masks, 8,200 diagnostic kits, 4,000 protective glasses for healthcare personnel, and 500,000 nitrile gloves. The president has thanked the collaboration of a group of Canarian businessmen "who have been involved in facilitating the logistics and connectivity necessary for that cargo, coming from China, to reach the Islands."
Likewise, Ángel Víctor Torres has highlighted the efforts made by the Government of the Canary Islands with the collaboration of the president of the Fuerteventura Cabildo, Blas Acosta, for the arrival at noon this Wednesday of another plane with 50,000 kits for the diagnosis of Covid-19, thus adding that total of 58,200. That second batch that arrived in Fuerteventura has been distributed by helicopter to other points of the Archipelago.
Ángel Víctor Torres added that the Government of the Canary Islands has allocated 16 million euros of its own funds to the purchase of different materials "that will be arriving during the next few days."
Priority for "the most vulnerable groups"
Regarding the 58,200 tests that have arrived this Wednesday, the President of the Canary Islands has explained that there is an action plan to start testing the most vulnerable groups in the spread of the coronavirus. In this way, "priority will be given to people who present symptoms, healthcare personnel, the 8,300 users in nursing homes in the Canary Islands and in functional diversity care centers, as well as social healthcare personnel," Torres pointed out.
The rest of the material (masks, gloves, gowns, PPE, etc.) will be used to protect healthcare and social healthcare personnel, as well as other essential groups such as police, firefighters, telephone support staff, or workers who perform cleaning and disinfection tasks throughout the Canary Islands.
These batches of protective material for healthcare personnel and those at risk from the COVID-19 pandemic are in addition to the one that arrived through the Ministry of Health on Tuesday, consisting of 18,000 FFP2 masks, 32,000 surgical masks that will be distributed in Primary Care centers, 17,200 plastic surgical gowns, 100 full suits, and 5,000 nitrile gloves; in addition to 28 ventilators for patients affected by COVID-19 and 1,750 swabs for collecting samples for PCR diagnosis.
Previously, a shipment had arrived in the Canary Islands last weekend, consisting of 7,040 FFP2 masks and 8,000 surgical masks.
Ángel Víctor Torres also pointed out that before the end of the week, the arrival of two more planes with more material acquired directly by the Canarian Health Service is planned, in the same way that he highlighted that "the forecast is to establish an open corridor in a stable way, to guarantee the arrival of material and cover all the needs."
