Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire. (File photo)
MANILA – The Philippines now has 29 certified laboratories capable of testing specimens from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) patients, a Department of Health (DOH) official said on Thursday.
"Mayroon na rin po tayong 29 licensed RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) laboratories na nakapagsasagawa ng ating tests. Atin pong inaantabayanan makatulong sa ating testing capacity natin ang 80 pa na laboratoryo na nasa Stage 3 at pataas (We now have 29 licensed RT-PCR laboratories nationwide performing the tests. We are also awaiting 80 more laboratories in Stage 3 and up to augment our testing capabilities)," DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said during a Covid-19 virtual presser.
The certified Covid-19 testing laboratories nationwide are the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, San Lazaro Hospital, UP National Institutes of Health, Lung Center of the Philippines, St. Luke’s Medical Center - Quezon City, The Medical City-Ortigas, Victoriano Luna-AFRIMS, Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory St. Luke’s Medical Center-BGC, Makati Medical Center, Philippine Red Cross, Chinese General Hospital, PRC-PLMC, Philippine Genome Center UP-Diliman, Marikina Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, UP-PGH Molecular Laboratory, Singapore Diagnostic Inc., Asian Hospital and Medical Center, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, Jose B. Lingad Memorial Hospital, De La Salle University-Cavite, Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory, Western Visayas Medical Center, Allegiant Regional Care Hospital, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, Cebu TB Reference Laboratory, Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center, Southern Philippines Medical Center, and Divine Word Hospital.
"As of May 13, nakapagsagawa po ang ating mga laboratoryo ng 9,465 tests at sa kabuuan ay nakakapagsagawa na tayo ng (our laboratories have performed 9,465 tests and in total we have performed) 191,963 individual tests," Vergeire said.
She also reported that the laboratories have performed 182,412 unique individual tests where 165,899 or 91 percent of the tests resulted negative; 16,395 or 9 percent resulted positive; 119 had inconclusive results, and 120 were invalid or had poor specimen quality.
"Lilinawin lang po namin na ang bilang ng total of tested individuals ay maaring mas mataas sa official number na nilalabas sapagkat ang mga numerong ito ay dumadaan pa sa (We want to clarify the number of total tested individuals could be higher than the official number of positive cases released because they still undergo) case validation and verification," Vergeire said. (PNA)
