SA Pathology indefinitely suspends routine flu tests to keep up with COVID-19 demands

SA Pathology has indefinitely suspended routine tests for the flu and similiar viruses – asking GPs not to request them – to keep up with thousands of COVID-19 tests.

• Latest Australian and international COVID news
• More coronavirus news here
• Coronavirus warning over SA Pathology staff cuts

SA Pathology has indefinitely suspended routine checks for infectious respiratory viruses, such as influenza, in order to keep up with COVID-19 testing demands.

The organisation’s clinical service director Dr Tom Dodd has sent a memo to GPs asking them to stop requesting tests for illnesses such as the flu and whooping cough.

SA Pathology has been performing about 4000 of these tests per week in recent months.

Dr Dodd said the restriction was necessary to allow the organisation to process large amounts of coronavirus tests.

He said the organisation performed almost 9000 COVID-19 tests over a two-day period earlier this month.

“Unfortunately, to maintain the above COVID-19 testing capacity, SA Pathology must further restrict the extended Respiratory viral PCR (RVP) testing that includes influenza A, influenza B and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV),” Dr Dodd wrote in his memo.

“Specimens from general practice, outpatients, COVID-19 clinics and COVID-19 drive-throughs will only be tested for SARS-CoV-2.”

Dr Dodd said extended RVP testing would only be performed on hospitalised inpatients, immunocompromised patients when their condition was included on the request form, and healthcare workers who may be forced to take leave and may receive antiviral therapy if influenza-positive.

He noted that in the seven weeks from June 19, only two influenza A cases and 17 influenza B had been recorded.

“There have been (less than) 40 RSV cases per week over the same time period,” he wrote.

“The rates of these non-SARS-CoV-2 viral infections remain at historically-low levels for this time of the year.”

Rural Doctors Association of SA president Dr Peter Rischbieth discussed the matter at a parliamentary inquiry this week.

“Obviously people who are worried they might have whooping cough, I think we can specifically ask (for a test) but SA Pathology has made that decision that they have to concentrate on the COVID testing at the moment, otherwise they will run out of reagents and won’t be able to concentrate on the pandemic,” he said.

“I think you could ask for a private laboratory to do that test if you had access to a courier, and some towns do have other laboratories like Clinpath ... who you could perhaps ask them to do the test if the SA Pathology laboratory said no.”

SA Pathology confirmed in a statement it had asked GPs to “only test for respiratory viruses if the patient meets the clinical definition”.

“Identifying every case of COVID-19 remains our priority and due to increased hand hygiene and social distancing measures we may see lower detection rates of other respiratory viruses,” it read.

An SA Health spokeswoman said the restriction would be continually monitored and routine RVP testing would be reinstated as soon as possible.