"Last week saw an average of over 17,500 tests per day, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic” António Lacerda Sales said at the regular press conference updating Covid-19 figures.

By Saturday, 12 September, Portugal had a rate of 222,527 tests per million inhabitants, the sixth highest among European Union countries, he said.

"Testing is, and will continue to be, a key tool in an integrated approach to pandemic control and Portugal has made considerable efforts to expand its laboratory capacity for Covid-19 testing," he said.

As of 14 September there are already 102 laboratories in this network, 42 of which are in the National Health Service (SNS) and "last Friday, 11 September, was the day on which the largest number of tests were carried out since the beginning of the pandemic, over 21,700".