Dundee microbiologists on hand to aid backlog of Covid-19 test results
The city's council leader John Alexander says Tayside Scientific Services could help plug a shortages gap
Last updated 15th Sep 2020
Dundee has the extra expertise available to overcome any backlog of coronavirus tests results.
That's according to the city's council leader after the First Minister expressed 'very serious' concerns of delays across the country.
Tayside scientific services - a group of chemists and microbiologists have been muted as a resource to handle the excess tests.
John Alexander said: "They already do analytical work for food hygiene for example. That could be applied very easily to the process of testing for covid-19.
"We're offering any government that requires that capacity for that to be used and deployed, it makes sense to use that when we have the resource sitting here.
The company operates out of Dundee City Council, based at the Dundee University Incubator.
The lab provides testing for animal feeding stuffs and also monitors the quality and safety of food and drinking water.
"We have the expertise in terms of microbiologists, chemists and state of the art facility here in Dundee, that is not currently processing covid-19 tests but easily could," Cllr Alexander added.
"I think it makes sense to put that on the table, to say to Scottish or UK governments, if there is an additional capacity required, we have it locally."
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