Coronavirus: Quest Diagnostics says it has cleared US Covid-19 test backlog

Quest Diagnostics, the US laboratory previously embroiled in the CervicalCheck controversy, has been facing criticism in the United States over a backlog of coronavirus tests it is processing.

New Jersey-based Quest, one of the CervicalCheck labs, has been criticised for a backlog of coronavirus tests in the United States that had reached a high point of 160,000 in late March.

In a statement on Monday the company said it had eliminated the backlog and had capacity to process 45,000 tests a day.

The lab had completed some 800,000 Covid-19 tests and had a turnaround time of less than 24 hours for priority patients, and on average less than two days for other samples, the company said.

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The lab, and the wider testing regime in the United States, had come in for criticism from medics and the media over lengthy delays of up to ten days for tests to be processed.

Quest began testing for Covid-19 in mid-March across 12 of its US labs, but it developed a significant backlog as demand substantially increased.

The lab was facing a backlog of 160,000 tests to be processed by March 25th; by the start of this month the company said it had cut down to 115,000.

One week later the company said it had cut waiting times for tests to be processed down from its peak to approx two to three days, and the backlog had been reduced to 80,000 tests, before being fully cleared on Monday.

The majority of testing under the cervical cancer screening programme in Ireland had been outsourced by the Health Service Executive to Quest and MedLab Pathology, with a lab in the Coombe hospital processing a smaller number of smears.

The screening programme was engulfed in a major controversy after it was revealed smear tests that failed to pick up abnormalities were found to be incorrect, following audits after women were later diagnosed with cancer.

The controversy was exposed during a court case in 2018 taken by Vicky Phelan and in total more than 200 women were affected by the scandal.

The Irish Covid-19 testing system has been struggling to deal with a significant backlog of tests in recent weeks, with people waiting up to two weeks to receive the results of swabs.

The testing backlog has been reduced from a high point of around 35,000 people waiting for results to some 11,000, the HSE's chief executive, Paul Reid, said on Monday.

Over 72,000 tests have been completed to date between 25 laboratories, including a German lab contracted to help the HSE clear the backlog.

On average 2,800 tests are now being processed a day, although the system reached a high point in processing 7,900 tests on Saturday.

It is expected the rest of the backlog will be cleared by the end of this week, with current demand for tests at around 1,200 per day.