Based in Liverpool, DAM Health UK operates COVID-19 testing clinics in Liverpool and Manchester, southern Spain and is also opening a centre in Birmingham. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool private healthcare firm DAM Health UK is to open a COVID-19 testing laboratory in south Liverpool to supply its expansion in the UK and overseas.

From its headquarters in Rodney Street in Liverpool city centre, DAM operates COVID-19 testing clinics in Liverpool and Manchester and is soon to open a new clinic in Birmingham.

It has also been working with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office in Barcelona to support international COVID-19 testing efforts after setting up facilities in southern Spain. And it provides PPE and PCR testing for workplaces across the UK.

Its new laboratory, in Rose Lane in Mossley Hill, will open later this month and will become the centre of its COVID-19 testing operations. Professor Frank Joseph, director at DAM Health, said: “The new lab in Mossley Hill will be a central hub of DAM Health’s operations.

“It will also be our central laboratory. We are expanding across the UK and working in Europe to support the international fight against COVID-19. Testing is now a way of life. Even with the vaccine. It t is likely that we will need negative tests before travelling overseas for holidays or work and maybe also for mass gatherings.”

Dr Joseph added that until we have more data on whether or the not the vaccines are effective at stopping transmission, rather than just disease, then people will still need to be tested on a regular basis.

“Previous vaccines for other things have shown a decrease in transmissibility,” he explained. “But we can’t take anything as a given with this virus, so we need to continue to work towards protecting people and this includes testing.”