YEREVAN. – It's not that we're saying we shouldn't increase the number of tests; also, it's not that it hasn’t increased. Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan stated this Tuesday during a meeting with journalists, and regarding Armenia’s fight against COVID-19.

"We are already conducting 2,500 tests a day, which will increase in the near future. We predict that in 1-2 weeks, along with the increase in our capacity, we will increase the potential of only our state labs to 3,000 per day, and plus the private labs—we may have up to 4,000 tests [per day].

However, we must remember that testing is just a way to detect infected people, which [the testing] has two purposes: to isolate and treat mild patients.

In terms of treatment, I can say that we are treating all those in need of treatment, but we have a problem in detecting asymptomatic cases, and here, the increase of testing will help that,” said the minister.

He added that four new labs—two in Yerevan and one, each, in Ijevan and Martuni towns—will be opened in Armenia in the near future.

Arsen Torosyan informed that during this period they had purchased 80 thousand test kits, received another 60 thousand as gifts, and another 100 thousand test kits were manufactured in Armenia.