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British health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive for coronavirus

Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 10 Mar 2020

British health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive for coronavirus

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London/IBNS: British junior Health Minister and Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has been diagnosed with coronavirus.

She is first British MP to be diagnosed with coronavirus.

She tweeted: "Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone. "

Dorries, the first MP to test positive, said she had taken all the advised precautions after finding out, and had been self-isolating at home, reported BBC.

Britain's health minister, Matt Hancock tweeted: "Really sorry to hear Nadine has tested positive for coronavirus. She has done the right thing by self isolating at home, and both NHS and PHE staff have been brilliant. We all wish her well as she recovers."

The NHS with Public Health England (PHE) said it is undertaking a significant expansion of coronavirus testing, with enhanced labs helping the health service carry out 10,000 tests daily.

PHE has developed a highly sensitive test to detect the virus, one of the first countries in the world to do so, which has been rapidly rolled out to their regional labs across the country, the NHS said in a statement.

Approximately 1,500 tests are being processed every day at PHE labs with the great majority of tests being turned around within 24 hours. PHE has processed over 25,000 tests as of 10 March and has not exceeded capacity during this time.

As more people come forward to be tested, the NHS is now scaling up tests by 500%, with NHS England asking expert NHS laboratory services across the country to bring new capacity online, and other labs to begin checks, enabling 8,000 more samples to be analysed every day of the week.

Dame Sue Hill, NHS chief scientific officer, said: “The NHS is ramping up the number of testing centres across the country, to help people get care quickly or have their mind put at ease."