Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 18) – The government is aiming to step up its daily testing capacity for COVID-19 to 50,000 once it reached the 30,000 target at the end of May, said coronavirus testing czar Vince Dizon.
“Thirty thousand tests per day at the end of May. Pagkatapos nito ay kailangan pa natin itaas ito ng 50,000 kada araw (After this, we have to increase the tests to 50,000 per day),” he told CNN Philippines’ News.PH.
Dizon, who is also the national COVID-19 response deputy implementer, said testing laboratories in the country were able to conduct 17,000 tests per day as of May 15 — a big jump from the 8,500 tests per day recorded on May 2.
He noted that private hospitals and laboratories, and organizations like the Philippine Red Cross contributed to the spike in the testing capacity.
With this, Department of Health spokesperson Rosario Vergeire said the 50,000 daily tests target can be attained through the government’s Test, Trace, Treat or T3 program, which links the government and private sectors to increase the testing capacity in the country.
“Dito po [T3] ay nakakapaglatag tayo ng plano gaya ng pagdagdag ng capacity ng private sectors sa atin. Unang-una na po yung modular laboratories, or pop-up laboratories na ilalagay natin sa stragetic locations in the country,” said Vergeire.
[Translation: Here (in T3) we can lay out plans, such as the private sector’s assistance in increasing our capacity. First are the modular laboratories or pop-up laboratories that we would establish in strategic locations in the country.]
Vergeire added that the daily testing capacity target can be achieved if more laboratories are accredited. She explained that accreditation of testing laboratories is a tedious process.
“Ito namang pagli-lisensya ng mga laboratories ay highly-technical and tedious process because we want to ensure quality and safety sa ginagawa natin, so we can prevent the risk of transmitting the disease in the community if ever na mag-set up tayo ng laboratoryo,” said Vergeire.
[Translation: The licensing of laboratories is a highly technical and tedious process because we want to ensure the quality and safety in what we do, so we can prevent the risk of transmitting the disease in the community when we set up a laboratory.]
Currently, the DOH has accredited 30 laboratories to conduct reverse transmission-polymerase chain reaction tests.
