CORONAVIRUS
— RAPID ANTIGEN TESTS
651. Hon
Dr STEVE THOMAS to the Leader of the House representing the Minister for
Health:
I refer to the minister's
media statement yesterday about providing an additional 20 free rapid antigen
tests for WA households.
(1) How many RATs
have the government ordered or purchased to date and at what cost?
(2) How many of
these RATs have been distributed free to the WA community through —
(a) members of
Parliament;
(b) schools;
(c) pop-up
clinics; and
(d) COVID-19
vaccination clinics?
(3) How many of the purchased RATs are un-useable as
they do not detect newer and emerging strains of COVID?
(4) What is the
use-by date for the current stock of RATs?
Hon
SAMANTHA ROWE replied:
I thank the member for some notice
of the question and provide the following answer on behalf of the Leader of the
House representing the Minister for Health.
(1) As the
Premier has stated in response to multiple questions in this place, the WA
government has ordered a total of 110.7 million rapid antigen tests at a cost
of $578.9 million.
(2) (a) There were 668 250;
(b) 13 583 660;
(c) 5 423 960; and
(d) 2 425 790.
(3) The WA health system purchased 2.25 million
Veritor System for Rapid Detection tests, which have since been
withdrawn from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. The supplier,
Becton Dickinson, has voluntarily withdrawn them from the ARTG for commercial
reasons to focus on other products. There is nothing to suggest these
particular tests, which have been used in clinical settings and not distributed
to the public, are ineffective at detecting current COVID-19 variants.
(4) The use-by dates for the current
stock of RATs range from December 2022 to December 2024.