China will provide Saudi Arabia with nine million Covid-19 test kits under a $264 million (Dh969m) deal signed on Sunday. The contract also provides the kingdom with 500 technicians from China to perform the tests and train Saudi staff.
Saudi Arabia says the agreement with China's BGI Group indicates the kingdom “is racing time to diagnose and isolate cases in order to reduce the risks of this pandemic”.
The agreement will also lead to setting up of six regional laboratories, including a mobile lab, across the country, each with the capacity to conduct 10,000 tests per day. Also included in the contract is comprehensive community testing and the genetic mapping of a number of samples in the kingdom as well as analysis of immunity mapping for one million samples.
Saudi Arabia has also purchased testing kits from several other companies in the US, Switzerland and South Korea, amounting to 14.5 million tests, which covers about 40 per cent of the country’s population.
Saudi Arabia has reported 17,522 deaths and 139 deaths from Covid-19. There have been almost 1,000 cases a day since April 17, when the number of cases is about 7,000.
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Saudi Health Ministry spokesman Mohammed Al Abdulaali has said there could be another 15,000 coronavirus cases in the country, as indicated by an app used by 600,000 people in the kingdom to help identify suspected infections.
The country has begun the gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions. Last week, Saudi authorities ordered the “transformation to a partial curfew,” allowing some businesses to reopen and easing restrictions on movement to lessen the economic toll on the country during the crisis.
From Wednesday, shops, malls and construction companies will be allowed to resume work but restaurants, cinemas and beauty salons will remain closed with a ban on gathering of more than five people still in place.
However, a 24-hour lockdown remains in Makkah, one of the hardest-hit urban centres in the kingdom.