A rapid antigen test manufacturing facility will be established in Melbourne to supply Victoria with millions of kits each year.
The state’s premier, Daniel Andrews, on Wednesday announced his government’s partnership with Lumos Diagnostics, which is already manufacturing the kits in the US for Canadian and European markets.
If their kits are approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the company plans to produce 1 million tests a month from April and 3 million a month after July. The facility will reach full capacity to manufacture 50 million tests a year by October.
“That’s a fantastic outcome,” Andrews said. “We know we’re going to be using these things for quite some time and of course, once you get to that level, there’s always opportunities to grow this even further.”
The announcement came as case numbers continued to drop nationwide.
Victoria recorded 25 deaths and 14,553 new cases of coronavirus, with the number of active infections in the state almost halving – from nearly 140,000 cases one week ago down to 73,886 on Wednesday.
Andrews said the majority of deaths were from previous days and had only recently been reported to authorities.
There were 786 Victorians in hospital with the virus, down from 851 on Tuesday.
NSW Health recorded 27 more Covid deaths and 11,807 new cases on Tuesday, the lowest number this year apart from Australia Day, when 10,345 cases were recorded.
It’s a drop of 1,011 cases on the previous day and a stark contrast to the record high of 91,715 cases on 13 January.
Queensland recorded 16 deaths, including a child under the age of 10, and 9,360 new cases.
The state’s chief health officer, Dr John Gerrard, said the child who died had a “very serious underlying, rare, inherited medical condition”.
Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said the news was “absolutely devastating”.
“It’s our very sad duty today to have to report our first young child that has passed away due to Covid,” she said on Wednesday.
“Can I … please urge families to get their children vaccinated. School goes back next week, we are expecting to see increased numbers of cases.”
South Australia recorded 1,723 infections and one death, while Tasmania recorded 666 cases and the Australian Capital Territory 549.
Western Australia recorded 17 new local cases and 12 returning from interstate or overseas. Two of the local infections are unlinked to existing clusters and are under investigation.
The Northern Territory is yet to release their daily figures.
Despite the drop in cases and new manufacturing deal, Andrews said Victoria would not be cancelling any previously made orders for rapid antigen tests, instead offering to share the kits with other jurisdictions if they were not needed.
“We can be more confident and much more positive about the future now that we’ve got that supply chain independence,” he said.
He flagged it would not be long until a resumption of non-urgent elective surgery, which has already been announced in NSW.
“We think it is possible to resume some services in a staggered way, in a balanced, cautious way, and we’ll make further announcements about that soon,” Andrews said.
