Negros Oriental Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion (File photo)
DUMAGUETE CITY – Negros Oriental will soon have a new testing facility for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) once the Silliman University Medical Center Foundation, Inc. (SUMCFI) here is granted accreditation by the Department of Health (DOH).
Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion, in a virtual press briefing Wednesday, said the SUMCFI will coordinate with the province’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to have a synchronized release of results and cases.
"We will definitely know because they will send their results to DOH who in turn will provide us with the same report," said Estacion, the health committee chair and Covid-19 incident commander of the IATF in the province.
"There is always coordination between the IATF and the private hospitals here," she added in mixed English and Cebuano.
Once approved by the DOH, the SUMCFI molecular laboratory will be the second Covid testing center in Negros Oriental.
The first is the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital Molecular Laboratory (NOPHML).
SUMFCI announced on its social media page that it held a blessing and dedication for its new molecular laboratory late last week and is just awaiting DOH accreditation.
It is capable of running tests on the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), Hepatitis C Viral Load, Human papillomavirus (HPV), C. difficile, Flu A, and B/RSV, and Group B strep test (GBS). (PNA)
