(Reuters) – The U.S. government is investing $6.5 million in two diagnostic laboratories to increase the country’s COVID-19 testing capacity and perform an additional 1 million tests each week by early October.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday the funding would enable the selected companies – Aegis Sciences Corp and Sonic Healthcare USA, a unit of Sonic Healthcare Ltd – expand capacity by increasing staffing and infrastructure.
HHS said it expects the labs to be able to conduct up to 4 million additional COVID-19 tests per month.
Adequate diagnostic testing and faster processing are crucial in the United States, which leads the world in COVID-19 deaths. The country has reported more than 166,000 deaths so far and at least 5 million coronavirus cases, according to a Reuters tally.
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Thermo Fisher Scientific will provide the labs with essential equipment needed to optimize their workflow.
(Reporting By Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
