Since the beginning of the pandemic, the government has received a total of about EUR 435 million in support for Covid, health and the economy.
About EUR 245 million to cope with the health, social and economic crisis, while over EUR 190 million more has been pledged and will be received in the coming months.
But despite the aid, the government has decided not to invest in either testing or increasing laboratory capacity.
According to data published in the show ‘ In a few words ‘, for five months in a row from March to the end of July, Albania had only one laboratory for tests, the IPH laboratory, with a capacity of about 600 tests per day.
In mid-July the government opened a second laboratory.
This laboratory, despite the investments of tens of thousands of euros, was closed two weeks after its opening, after the concessionaire of the hospital laboratories requested to take over the laboratories of QSUT and all hospitals in the country.
However, the Ministry of Health claimed that the COVID-19 laboratory has remained wiwwth QSUT and has continued to perform COVID-19 tests. Exit has found however that hospital laboratories across the country use private labs and none of them do COVID-19 testing. It is also known that concessionaire laboratories are not carrying out COVID-19 tests, therefore the claim of the Ministry appears to be either untrue or misleading.
