The COVID-19 pandemic made a countless number of people that contracted the virus financially worse off, among other things, but on the other hand, private labs got the other side of the coin.
According to official estimates, Albanians paid €17 million out of their pockets, although the real sum is believed to exceed that figure by far.
In the early pandemic days, getting a test at a private lab varied from around €97, a price that nowadays has dropped to €28.
From 2020 to 2021, some 380,000 tests were carried out, with all data pointing to the fact that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
9.6 million people traveled abroad from Albania last year with a majority of countries demanding a negative test, regardless if a person was vaccinated or not. Those tests were carried out in private labs.
Taking as an example, last November and December only, Italy, Greece, Austria, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden required a negative test prior to travel. Nearly 314,000 citizens fled from Albania to one of these countries, all equipped with a negative test.
But all in all, private labs only reported 257,000 tests, in other words, some 58,000 fewer than the total in these two months.
Put differently, all undeclared tests translate into dozens of millions of euros in undeclared revenue.
The first three labs to be licensed were the American Hospital, Genius Lab, and Intermedica, the greatest benefactors of the Albanian people’s money in 2020. Another 17 labs were only added afterward.
In light of this, labs should be subjected to an assessment on the veracity of the number of tests they have carried, and how much they have really earned as in many cases citizens have also gotten the test without actually needing the negative proof to travel abroad.
