DOH intensifies methods to identify samples of suspected coronavirus

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said the agency is initiating efforts to expedite the identification of test samples of suspected novel coronavirus with the purchase of a primer.

Health officials said the use of a primer would shorten the period of identifying viruses.

“Before we arrange it [samples] to a courier, siyempre, yung government ng Australia [natatagalan] because we are transporting potentially infectious materials so medyo matagal yung clearance so that [primer] would cut to at least two to three days,” Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said in a press conference at DOH Headquarters.

[Before we arrange the samples to a courier, of course, the government of Australia will impose strict clearance because we are transporting potentially infectious materials, so the primer will cut the travel time to at least two to three days.]

Initially, samples are undertaking screening to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa to verify if they are positive for “non-specific pancoronavirus assay.”

Once the samples test positive for pancoronavirus, the Health department will transport the test samples to Victorian Infectious Disease Reference in Melbourne, Australia to determine if it is positive for novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV.

Domingo said they are hoping that the primer would arrive in the country within the week. He also noted that they purchased the primer at a country outside of China.

The lab technicians use primers to simplify the identification of pathogenic viruses, thus, making it quicker to determine if it is coronavirus strain.

To recall, a five-year-old boy from Cebu tested positive for pancoronavirus assay which was then sent to Australia for confirmation. The results, which stated that the child tested negative for novel coronavirus, only arrived after almost two weeks.

Edited by JPV