简体中文
Spanish health authorities are carrying out between 40,000 and 47,000 tests every day to detect coronavirus infections, Salvador Illa, Minister for Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare, said on Thursday.
Illa made the remarks while appearing before the Health Commission in the Spanish Parliament.
"In the last three weeks, we have been carrying out between 40,000 to 47,000 tests every day to a total of 930,230," said the minister.
Illa noted that the high numbers of tests were behind recent increases in the number of new COVID-19 cases in Spain, with 4,978 new cases reported on Wednesday and 5,183 confirmed on Thursday, taking the number of people known to have been infected with COVID-19 to 182,816.
Fernando Simon, head of the Center for the Coordination for Health Emergencies at the Health Ministry, also welcomed the increased number of tests.
"It is good news because it duplicates what we had been doing," said Simon, adding that many of the new cases were from tests detecting antibodies that show a person had been infected with the virus, but had recovered and subsequently developed immunity.
"It is hard to know where to put these people in the time-line of the epidemic, because if they no longer have symptoms, we don't know when they were ill," he explained.
Thursday also saw Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez begin a round of talks via video conference with the leaders of Spain's political parties.
The prime minister has said he wanted to form a national pact involving all parties to help the economic and social reconstruction of his country after the crisis and proposed setting up a "Round Table for Social and Economic Reconstruction."
