The Ministry of Health says its working with DHBs to make sure 90 per cent of the population has easy access to rapid antigen tests (RATs).
A ministry spokesperson said in a statement that work is underway to set up a centralised delivery option, this would be for “people who are symptomatic and their households”.
“We are aware that some DHBs such as the Wairarapa DHB are already offering the delivery option to people who are unable to collect RATs from the collection sites,” the spokesperson said on Friday, adding that more information would be provided when available.
For those who need to collect RATs, the ministry is aiming to close the gap on how far people would need to travel.
“Whether it’s through a collection point or via GPs and iwi providers” the ministry says people should be able to access RATs “within a 20 minute drive by next week”.
“There are 177 collection sites, 99 testing centres, and 30 providers supporting our priority population groups nationwide. And with the addition of participating pharmacies and GPs, there are now more than 500 access points for RATs, with additional sites continuing to be opened across the motu.
“All collection sites are listed on the Healthpoint website and it is up to individual pharmacy if they want to participate in becoming a collection site. GPs only offer supervised RATs.”
It comes after massive queues were reported at some collection sites following Thursday's announcement about ordering RATs online.
An east Auckland man told 1News he spent three hours "moving around the city" looking for a RAT test for his son on Thursday.
“I went to two pharmacies and they advised that the MoH website was incorrect and I had to go to the Leonard Road collection centre in Mount Wellington - I drove past, but traffic was 100 cars deep - communication needs to be sorted,” he said.
He then travelled from Mount Wellington into Auckland's CBD and spent an hour lining up at the The Cloud collection centre in Quay Street.
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The ministry said on Friday there is a good supply of RATs to meet demand.
“In the past week alone, we have distributed 8.8 million RATs into the community. This includes DHBs, GPs, businesses as well as pharmacies. On top of our current supply, we have another 99 million RATs arriving in March. This includes a shipment of 8 million landing this weekend.
“Under the public health response pharmacies are supplied with supervised RATs for testing asymptomatic unvaccinated people over 12 years and three months who are travelling domestically with a transport company that requires evidence of a negative test result, or asymptomatic unvaccinated people requested to attend a court of law by the Ministry of Justice. Pharmacies help people take the test and record the results.
“RATs from the Ministry of Health’s central supply are not available for public sale – they are being distributed to support the public health response.
“Now that we are in Phase 3 any business (including pharmacies) can sell privately procured approved RATs to the public. It is ultimately a business decision for each pharmacy, whether they retail RATs or not.”
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