The Minister for Health and Social Services, Dr Kalumbi Shangula, said the country has a backlog of over 2 000 COVID-19 samples that need to be tested. Shangula noted this in an interview with NAMPA on Monday, where he said that while they have increased the testing capacity and number of laboratories doing the testing, the rising number of people getting tested per day have led to laboratories being overwhelmed with more samples than they can test in a day. He said the country has six laboratories namely the Namibia Institute of Pathology (NIP), PathCare, the University of Namibia laboratory, Namdeb laboratory, the Central Veterinary Laboratory as well as the Namib Poultry Laboratory that are all testing for COVID-19. He said while their testing capacity is exceeding 2 000 cases per day, they are currently overwhelmed and as a result, COVID-19 results may now take more days than usual. At the moment some people are reportedly waiting for more than 10 days for their COVID-19 results. “We increased the case detection through expanding targeted testing of at-risk demographics where we go into the communities to get as many cases as possible instead of waiting for people to come forth for testing. This includes going into factories, mines, schools when they were still open, prisons and places of that kind,” Shangula explained noting that this has contributed to the current backlog. He said the festive season long weekend also contributed to the piling up of cases as many of the lab staff are off duty and only expected to come back to work this week. “We have a testing capacity of over 2 000 cases per day from all the laboratories together and we expect the case backlogs to be cleared soon but for now are pleading with the public to understand that their results may take longer than usual but we are doing the best we can to clear it. We should also understand that these people are human, they are overwhelmed,” Shangula said. -NAMPA