"We will not throw them away as I have no doubt we will be able to use them to estimate the way this disease will behave in the future as these tests are simply done and we don’t need a laboratory to use them," the minister told a press conference on Thursday.
According to the Health Ministry, medics and scientists have identified that rapid coronavirus tests should not be use to confirm the COVID-19 disease.
Lithuania has bought around 0.5 million of rapid tests, the minister said.
"The fact that they are not suitable for diagnosing the disease itself doesn’t mean that they cannot be used at all and will be discarded and not used. We have asked our scientists to assess them in terms of accuracy and specificity for the identification of immunity as this is exactly what those tests should identify," Veryga said.
The minister added that laboratory tests would be further used to diagnose the active disease.
A total of 1,128 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Lithuania. 178 people have recovered and 30 people have died of the virus.