Philippines now has 23 COVID-19 testing centers

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) has certified the UP-PGH Medical Research Laboratory, Singapore Diagnostic, Inc., and Cebu TB Reference Laboratory as COVID-19 testing laboratories.

The accreditation of the three testing centers brings to 23 the total COVID-19 testing laboratories nationwide.

All the accredited testing centers can perform full-scale RT-PCR (real-time polymerase chain reaction) testing.

The 23 COVID-19 testing centers are the following:

• Research Institute for Tropical Medicine
• Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center
• San Lazaro Hospital
• Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center
• Southern Philippines Medical Center
• University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health
• Lung Center of the Philippines
• Western Visayas Medical Center
• Bicol Public Health Laboratory
• St Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City
• Victoriano Luna Hospital
• The Medical City
• Makati Medical Center
• Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory
• St Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City
• Philippine Red Cross
• Chinese General Hospital
• Philippine Genome Center
• Marikina Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory
• PRC-PLMC
• Cebu TB Reference Laboratory
• UP-PGH Medical Research Laboratory
• Singapore Diagnostic, Inc.

The government is eyeing to accredit 58 more laboratories in the coming weeks to bring the country’s total to 78 by the end of May. 

This is after it failed to reach its target to conduct 8,000 tests per day by April 30. To date, the country is capable of conducting 5,000 tests daily.

The Philippines so far has 9,684 COVID-19 cases, including 1,408 recoveries and 637 deaths.