NHS Scotland to get testing kits from South Korea

Hospitals in Scotland are to receive equipment from South Korea to help increase testing for coronavirus, BBC Scotland has learned.

The equipment will allow health boards to test hundreds more people, expanding capacity across the country.

It comes as NHS Grampian became the first health board to offer its own in-house tests.

Previously any tests carried out had to be sent to main reference centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The country's chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood has estimated that up to 65,000 people in Scotland may be infected with Covid-19.

The equipment coming from South Korea will provide start to finish testing for coronavirus - processing samples and giving results in as little as seven hours.

Machines will arrive next week, and begin testing patients within days.