MANILA, Philippines — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday that it has given its green light for the commercial use of four coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test kits.
The approved test kits are manufactured by medical firms based in China and Korea.
The following are the COVID-19 test kits approved by the FDA for commercial use:
-Nucleic acid detection kit for 2019-nCoV;
-Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV nucleic acid detection kit (fluorescence PCR method)
-AllplexTM 2019-nCoV Assay
-SOLGENT DiaPlexQ Novel Coronavuris (2019-nCoV) Detection Kit;
To date, the Philippines has 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that first emerged in China’s city of Wuhan in Hubei province in late 2019.
The virus causes mild symptoms such as fever and cough for most people but can cause serious illness such as pneumonia for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems.
The World Health Organization considers the disease as a pandemic with over 200,000 cases and more than 8,500 deaths worldwide.