The Chilean division of salmon farming giant Mowi is handing over its main laboratory facilities to enable the country's health authorities to carry out up to 1,000 tests a day on coronavirus samples.
For an initial three-month period, health professionals will be given use of specialized equipment such as an automatic extraction systems used for the detection of human diseases and the most modern RT-PCR equipment in the region.
Mowi technicians will be standing by to provide help.
The lab, based in the southern part of the country, will receive samples beginning in the first week of April.
Mowi Chile CEO Fernando Villarroel noted that heavy testing in South Korea and other countries was successful in containing the spread of coronavirus. The "huge and advanced technical capacity" of the company's labs can replicate those strategies, he added.
SalmonChile President Arturo Clement said the moves were part of a broad mobilization across the industry to help fight the spread of the disease.
"As an industry industry we are providing laboratories that can analyze 5,000 daily samples for the health system. This implies a considerable increase in the amount of daily analysis," Clement said.
In addition, salmon producers including Camanchaca, Mowi, AquaChile, Australis and animal nutrition company Fiordo Austral have joined companies from other sectors in a community effort to clean and disinfect public places, biobiochile.cl reports.
