Purpose-built Covid lab to open at  Limerick  hospital in January

University Hospital Limerick consultant microbiologist Patrick Stapleton. Picture: Hospitals Group

A €4m purpose-built Covid-19 laboratory, which will boost testing capacity at University Hospital Limerick by 70%, has been given the green light, under the Government’s national pandemic strategy.

The “emergency construction project” is expected to be open and be operational by the end of next January, and it will increase UHL's existing daily test capacity by approximately 150 tests per day, to around 350 daily tests, a spokesman for UHL said.