CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The setting up of a complete laboratory for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) mass testing in provinces within Luzon but outside of Metro Manila has been delayed due to a snafu in the choice of cargo plane.
The equipment and supplies for the laboratory were expected to reach the Jose B. Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital (JBLMRH) in this capital city of Pampanga province on April 14 or 15, but the cargo could not all fit in a chartered plane, Dr. Monserrat Chichioco, JBLMRH medical director, said on Thursday.
A military C-130 plane was instead requisitioned by the Department of Health (DOH) to fetch the cargo in Shenzhen, China. It is scheduled to depart on April 21, Chichioco said.
ADB grant
It would take two to seven days to set up the diagnostic molecular pathology laboratory, which was a grant from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), she said.
It was not clear if the items were part of a $3-million grant from the ADB in March.
“It is capable of COVID RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) and other tests aside from COVID-19,” Chichioco said.
Chichioco said the laboratory could perform up to 2,000 tests per day in two shifts. “When we are to do a 24-hour operation, 3,000 tests can be done,” she said.
The laboratory’s medical technicians are now undergoing training at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).As of April 3, there were only eight COVID-19 testing centers in Luzon and the Visayas, according to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles.
Eight centers
Nograles, also spokesperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, identified these as the RITM in Muntinlupa City, San Lazaro Hospital and University of the Philippines National Institute of Health in Manila, Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC), Western Visayas Medical Center in Iloilo City and Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
Once the JBLMRH laboratory is operational, people who are under investigation for the virus will be given priority for testing, Nograles said.
In Baguio City, BGHMC has done 2,235 tests and can conduct 270 to 300 tests daily, most of which are specimens of people from Cagayan Valley and Ilocos region.
Dr. Ricardo Ruñez Jr., BGHMC medical director, said the hospital was required to perform 700 tests each day, but it has only one RT-PCR machine.
The hospital needs a second machine to fulfill its target, Ruñez said, adding that it has been promised a unit from the Department of Science and Technology.
As of April 14, the DOH in Cordillera tallied 23 COVID-19 patients, 17 of them in Baguio. Abra province has three cases but all are recovering.
Benguet province also has three patients while Apayao, Ifugao, Kalinga and Mountain Province remain virus-free. —WITH A REPORT FROM VALERIE DAMIAN