A pop up Covid-19 walk-in test centre is to be set up in Athlone over the weekend following requests from local public health officials.
The centre will open at the Athlone Primary Care Centre in Arcadia from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening.
The number of people being tested for Covid-19 in Longford and Westmeath has not decreased despite major issues caused by the cyber attack on the HSE.
One casualty of the hacking was the GP referral portal for Covid tests to established test centres across the country.
Recent figures show approximately 200 people a day presenting for a Covid-19 test at St Loman's Hospital in Mullingar and over 90 a day at the Longford Test Centre in the Mastertech Business Park.
Figures from the centres' show at least a third of those attending the centres have been referred from their GPs, with the remainder are there of their own accord.
Head of testing for Midlands, Louth, Meath HSE area, Niamh Clarke says staff are tracking positive cases and acting accordingly:
