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Samples for testing COVID-19 | INQUIRER.NET FILE PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Massive testing for 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Cebu City will begin soon.
This was developed after the Cebu city government sent a total of 20,000 swab test kits to the City Department of Health (CHD) and Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) on Monday, April 13. 2020.
Eighteen thousand were assigned to CDH while the remaining 2,000 to CCMC.
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella also said they had donated an additional 10,000 test kits to the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7).
With this, we will be able to begin massive testing of COVID-19 here in the city. Of course, in a manner approved by the World Health Organization, the IATF (Inter-Agency Working Group) and the DOH, “Labella said at a press conference on Monday.
Labella also said that with most of the test kits they had purchased, they would aim to do 500 tests a day for the city.
Cebu City has a total of 25 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the highest among all areas in Central Visayas. They also reported five deaths and 15 recoveries as of April 11, 2020.
Mass testing
The national government, as well as several local governments in Luzon, are also taking steps for a large-scale implementation of the massive COVID-19 tests.
More than 60 hospitals and laboratories in the country are considered to be conducting coronavirus tests, three of which are in central Visayas.
Currently, only Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) is classified as a sub-national level laboratory, which is qualified to conduct COVID-19 testing for Central Visayas. DOH data shows that the VSMMC has the ability to analyze approximately 240 samples per day.
In a separate phone interview with CDN Digital, Dr. Daisy Villa, chief of the City’s Office of Health, said they were planning specific protocols and guidelines on how to conduct the mass testing here.
Villa currently said they would conduct “selective testing” only because of the limited test kits.
“With massive testing, we will no longer be screening, and we can accommodate more in an area where there is a confirmed case,” Villa said in Cebuano.
He added that in selective tests, the CHD would be forced to test only people who had been exposed to the virus to the “second degree.”
People exposed to COVID-19 in the second degree would refer to those who had been in contact with close contacts of infected patients.
Villa also said that with the massive tests that will soon be implemented, they could expand their surveillance.
“All of these samples will be sent to VSMMC,” he added.
It may be recalled that the city government in March decided to purchase three polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines and 20,000 test kits to speed up COVID-19 testing not only for the city but also in Cebu province and Central Visayas, since VSMMC serves the entire region.
PCR machines are needed to detect the presence of COVID-19 in a patient’s sample.
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