Free Covid-19 tests for select expats and all Emiratis in the UAE

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, authorised free Covid-19 tests for all Emiratis beginning next week.

The free testing would also be extended to expat domestic workers based within the residences of these Emirati households, said the country’s Ministry of Health and Community Protection and the National Authority for Emergency, Crisis and Disaster Management in a joint statement, reported official news agency WAM.

Additionally, people of determination, pregnant women, those aged above 50 and anyone who has come in direct contact with infected individuals are also eligible for free testing.

Read: Pics: UAE opens 13 additional drive-through Covid-19 testing facilities

The country’s health ministry announced 783 Covid-19 cases on May 12, resulting from over 32,000 tests conducted to screen for the virus.The newly diagnosed cases have increased the number of total infections in the country to 19,661.

The ministry also announced the deaths of two individuals of different nationalities who were active Covid-19 patients and died due to complications.

Read more: GCC Covid-19 update: UAE registers 783 cases; Oman reports 148 infections

The total death toll on account of the virus now stands at 203.

The country also reported 631 recoveries, raising the total number of recoveries to 6,012.

In April, the UAE announced that a massive-throughput laboratory was operational in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City which would allow for population-scale detection and diagnosis of the Covid-19 virus.

Read also: Watch: How Abu Dhabi built a high-volume Covid-19 testing lab in 14 days

The laboratory, a collaboration between Abu Dhabi-based AI and cloud computing company Group42 (G42) and genomics company BGI, can conduct tens of thousands of real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests per day and was the first facility of this scale built outside of China.