Coronavirus
CoronavirusiStock

The Health and Defense Ministries on Thursday evening signed an agreement with the Israeli "My Heritage" company to set up and operate a laboratory that would carry out 10,000 coronavirus tests a day.

My Heritage will set up a coronavirus testing lab in Israel. The lab will be independent and operated by the company’s Israeli employees and will use the equipment of Chinese company BGI.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman said, "We continue to strengthen the testing system with an addition that will assist us in the national effort to combat the coronavirus. We welcome this and trust this joint activity which will allow us to advance the tests professionally, efficiently and with availability."

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said, "The most important task is to strengthen the scope of the tests, in scale and in speed. I congratulate My Heritage and BGI for entering this campaign."

This deal joins an agreement signed by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health with Aid Genomics, which will also provide BGI equipment to health maintenance organizations and hospitals across the country. The equipment will allow them to carry out 12-14 thousand tests a day. In total, the two agreements will permit for more than 20,000 tests per day.