TOTAL OFFERS SAMPLE COLLECTION KITS AND REAGENTS FOR COVID-19 TESTING

The Total-led Mozambique LNG Project proceeded today, as part of its support to the national response against COVID-19, to the delivery to the Ministry of Health, of twelve thousand (12,000) sample collection kits, reagents and consumables for six thousand (6000) PCR tests and twenty four (24) extraction kits equivalent to six thousand (6000) samples. The offer is for the National Institute of Health (INS), which recently benefited from 12,500 surgical masks also offered by the Project, that are part of an initial batch of fifty thousand (50,000) masks for health authorities in the country.

The support of Total and its partners in the Mozambique LNG project to the national response against COVID-19 has already included, among others, the delivery to the authorities of Cabo Delgado of twelve thousand (12,000) masks and several other personal protection equipment, fifteen (15) infrared thermometers and thirty (30) spray pumps of ten (10) liters each. The rehabilitation of one (1) fifty (50) bed ward at the Pemba Provincial Hospital for the isolation of COVID-19 patients and the installation, still in Pemba, of one (1) new PCR laboratory - 45m2 container with five divisions - for testing COVID-19, equipped with complete laboratory and office equipment are also underway, as well as the process of acquiring 5 ventilators and one (1) tent to be used as an isolation ward for patients with COVID -19 at the District Hospital of Palma.

The Minister of Health, Armindo Tiago, stated: “We acknowledge that the support comes at a time when there are enormous difficulties in the availability of tests in the international market, therefore, we think that Total is a champion in the process of contributing to our better performance. This support is an important contribution to strengthening our diagnostic capacity and, of course, will contribute to efforts to a better control of the pandemic”.

Armindo Tiago added that “testing combined with other actions will ensure the success of the disease control in Mozambique. It was in this perspective that, in order to territorially expand the Covid-19 diagnostic capacity in Mozambique, we started the decentralization of the testing process. We started by doing it in the province of Sofala and then went to the province of Nampula. We are also in Tete and Zambézia. Soon, as announced, with support of Total, we will expand the testing to the city of Pemba”.

The Country Chair of Total in Mozambique and Vice-President of the Mozambique LNG project, Ronan Bescond, said: “The health and well-being of our employees and the communities where we operate are imperative. Thus, all over the world, in the countries where we operate, we are mobilized to face this global pandemic. Mozambique is not an exception: we are mobilized within our company to implement the necessary measures and to work with the Mozambican Government and other stakeholders to deal with this pandemic.”

Ronan Bescond also stated that with “the support delivered today is our contribution to strengthen capacity to collect samples from patients suspected of being infected with the virus at the level of health units and sentinel posts and in the laboratory processing of samples to confirm the diagnosis of COVID-19”. 

Bescond also expressed the acknowledgments of Total and its partners for the invaluable support provided by the health authorities in controlling COVID-19 at the Afungi camp.