(Eagle News) – The Department of Health (DOH) said that the mass testing has already started in the country for COVID-19 which is prioritizing vulnerable populations with symptoms.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that so far around 19,000 individuals have already been tested for coronavirus and that more than 15,000 have tested negative for the disease.
Positive test results have reached 3,739 so far. This includes repeat tests, Vergeire said, which is why the number does not coincide with the number of coronavirus cases in the country which as of Saturday afternoon has reached 3,094.
Vergeire said that “equivocal” tests results are at 49. These are the tests results which are neither positive nor negative.
She said that not all Filipinos would qualify for COVID-19 testing.
The testing would prioritize the vulnerable sectors for coronavirus. They include persons under investigation (PUIs), and persons under monitoring (PUMs) who have been exposed to COVID-19 cases. The other high risk individuals who are also prioritized for testing are pregnant women; those with pre-existing conditions and underlying illnesses such as cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes; and health care workers who are treating COVID-19 patients, who have symptoms of COVID-19.
-DOH to release guidelines-
Vergeire said that the DOH will release guidelines on this mass testing.
Currently, the country is able to conduct 900 to 1,200 tests a day as more laboratories had been certified and equipped to do COVID-19 testing, aside from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
Vergeire said that by April 14, they can already do more than 3,000 tests per day.
By end of the month, the number of COVID-19 tests that the country can do would range between 8,000 to 10,000 tests per day, she said.
At this point, the capacity for testing had been strengthened too with the certification by the Food and Drug Administration of the test kits developed by the University of the Philippines
The country is also readying more hospitals and medical facilties for COVID-19 referrals in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
More establishments are also being converted into quarantine facilities that can house mild COVID-19 cases.
These include the PICC, World Trade Center, the Rizal Memorial Coliseum, and more recently the Philippine Arena and the entire Ciudad de Victoria complex.