Microbiology requesting during COVID-19 testing surge
August 23, 2021
The current community outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta variant has caused a huge surge in local demand for SARS-CoV-2 testing, averaging over 2000 tests per day over the past 5 days for Pathlab. Other microbiology and molecular requests need to be urgently reduced in order to re-allocate staff for COVID testing. We would ask please that all “routine” testing is minimised as much as possible. Please…
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COVID-19 Level 4 Laboratory Information 2
August 20, 2021
Reduction in Community Collection Facilities COVID surveillance swabbing is available tomorrow Saturday 21st August 2021 and Sunday 22nd August at the dedicated CTC in the parking building at Tauranga Crossing shopping centre. OPEN - 8.30am – 3.00pm. We will advise if this will continue past Sunday. Effective Monday 23rd August 2021: Katikati: OPEN Monday, Wednesday, Friday, CLOSED Tuesday…
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COVID-19 Level 4 Laboratory Services
August 18, 2021
Hospital and community laboratories nationwide have been instructed to reduce non-essential testing in efforts to conserve reagents, cope with staff shortages and mobilise the workforce for COVID-19. Reduction in Community Collection Facilities With the move to Alert Level 4 at 11.59pm Tuesday August 17th, there will be closures of a few of our collection facilities, as follows: Bay of Plenty…
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SARS-CoV-2 IgG Serology Testing
June 10, 2021
Please note effective 14th June, SARS-CoV-2 IgG serology testing will be available at Pathlab. This assay can potentially be used to assess vaccine response and to detect previous infection. This is a quantitative IgG assay performed on the Abbott Alinity platform. However, as it is still not clear exactly what level of antibodies confers reliable protection against COVID-19 post-vaccination, we…
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Mycobacterial Culture at Waikato Hospital Laboratory
June 03, 2021
Samples for mycobacterial culture should be restricted to urgent requests only until further notice. Please note that mycobacterial culture for the whole region (Bay of Plenty, Lakes and Waikato DHBs) is performed in the purpose-built PC3 containment laboratory at Waikato hospital. Due to the recent cyber-attack on Waikato DHB, the registration, processing and reporting of these samples needs to…
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