To detect COVID-19 carriers in the North Coast region of Jalisco, UdeG installed a COVID-19 laboratory at the Centro Universitario de la Costa (CuCosta) in Puerto Vallarta.
The laboratory started operations today and the first nine tests taken are expected to have results tomorrow, Wednesday. It is believed that the laboratory can process up to 30 tests per day and the possibility of increasing the number is not ruled out.
Puerto Vallarta has averaged less than 20 tests per day.
Ricardo Villanueva, university rector, commented that having a laboratory in Puerto Vallarta is important, since the cities with the highest number of visitors are the most at risk and in the case of Puerto Vallarta, its number of visitors and its international airport, make it a key point.
The rector of CUCosta, Jorge Téllez López, added that the laboratory is important due to the size of the contagion in the area, since “outside the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (AMG), Vallarta is the municipality that registers the largest number of cases, with 46, if we add the eight cases of Bahía de Banderas, the four of Tomatlán and the ten of the Sierra de Cuautla, it would give us a total of 68 cases ”.
Regarding its operation, the Director of the OPD Civil Hospital of Guadalajara, Jaime Andrade Villanueva explained that the Puerto Vallarta laboratory works in the same way as the three that the UdeG implemented in the Guadalajara metro area.
Calls from people with symptoms or suspected contagion will be received at the call center 33-3540-3001 and an appointment will be scheduled to go to the testing area in CuCosta, while the most serious cases will be referred to 911 for medical personnel to come to their homes.
People who receive an appointment for the laboratory in CUCosta must go in a car alone or only accompanied by a person to the parking lot of the new testing site, there the staff will take the sample and pass it to the laboratory endorsed by the Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference (InDRE).
Nine people work in this laboratory, four carrying out the analysis of the tests, led by two academic specialists with a doctorate; in addition to 14 people who are in the test-taking brigades directly with patients.
According to Andrade Villanueva, all the members of the laboratory received training to correctly carry out the COVID -19 screening tests through the real-time PCR process, in accordance with the guidelines of the World Health Organizations (WHO) and the Pan-American Health (PAHO).
