Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 9) — A health facility in Cavite province, south of Metro Manila, got accredited as a coronavirus testing center, a provincial governor said Saturday
The country’s testing laboratories can now process up to 12,000 samples per day, Vince Dizon, deputy chief implementer of the national policy against COVID-19, said on Friday.
Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla said the De La Salle Medical Health and Sciences Institute in Dasmariñas City received its accreditation from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
He said frontline workers will get tested in the facility at no cost beginning next week.
The molecular laboratory is the 24th COVID-19 testing center in the country.
The other 23 certified testing sites are:
-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine
-Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center
-San Lazaro Hospital
-Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center
-UP National Institutes of Health
-Western Visayas Medical Center
-Southern Philippines Medical Center
-Lung Center of the Philippines
-Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory
-V. Luna Hospital
-Philippine Genome Center UP-Diliman
-Cebu TB Reference Laboratory
-UP-PGH Molecular Laboratory
-Marikina Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory
-Detoxicare Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory
-Makati Medical Center
-St. Luke’s Medical Center – Quezon City
-The Medical City 124
-St. Luke’s Medical Center – BGC
-Philippine Red Cross (PRC)
-Chinese General Hospital
-Philippine Red Cross Logistics & Multipurpose Center
-Singapore Diagnostics
The Department of Health said the De La Salle facility could run 1,000 real-time polymerase chain reaction tests per day. The PCR test is considered the gold standard in COVID-19 testing by health experts.
The DOH, meanwhile, said the Philippine Red Cross’s Logistics and Multipurpose Center has the highest capacity at 810 tests daily.
