Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 3) — The government wants to expand the country’s capacity to do genome sequencing, which is the second test needed to identify which type of variant has infected a coronavirus-positive individual.
“Ngayon po, Philippine Genome Center lang po nagsasagawa ng sequencing natin. At gusto po natin na mai-expand ang kakayahan na ito para mas bumilis at mas marami po tayong ma-sequence na mga kababayan nating nagtu-turn positive,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a briefing.
[Translation: At present, only the Philippine Genome Center is conducting our sequencing. And we want to expand that capacity, so we can quickly sequence the samples of our fellow Filipinos who turn out positive for COVID-19.]
The PGC will resume next week its regular operations of sequencing 750 specimens per week after securing enough reagents and supplies, Vergeire said. This week, it was only able to run tests on 48 samples, she added.
Vergeire also said the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine will assist the PGC in conducting tests for possible COVID-19 variant detection.
The DOH has asked for P362-million additional budget to fund the genome sequencing efforts of these three institutions for the whole year, the official said.
No other significant variants have been detected in the country, Vergeire said. The Philippines has 17 confirmed cases of the faster spreading B.1.1.7 variant, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom. The DOH is monitoring the variants which recently emerged in South Africa and Malaysia, as they could affect the COVID-19 transmission rates in the Philippines, she said.
