Philippines now has 30 licensed COVID-19 testing centers – DOH | Inquirer News

Philippines now has 30 licensed COVID-19 testing centers – DOH

/ 06:30 PM May 12, 2020

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) announced Tuesday that the Philippines now has 30 laboratories nationwide that are capable of detecting SARS CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

This comes after DOH approved the accreditation of the Asian Hospital and Medical Center and Allegiant Regional Care Hospital to conduct real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.

There are now 28 licensed RT-PCR laboratories in the country, according to DOH, since the Lung Center of the Philippines and Zamboanga City Medical Center were designated as GeneXpert rapid testing facilities.

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GeneXpert test kits can reportedly provide results after 45 minutes — way faster than the RT-PCR test which has a turnaround time of at least 24 hours.

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DOH also reported that there are 64 laboratories that are in Stage 3 and Stage 4 of its five-stage accreditation process.

The government earlier said it is eyeing to have a total of 78 COVID-19 testing laboratories by the end of May in order to reach its 30,000 tests a day goal.

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Nationwide, there are 11,350 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019, including 2,106 recoveries and 751 deaths as of May 12.

KGA
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TAGS: 2019-nCoV, Coronavirus, coronavirus Philippines, COVID-19, DoH, GeneXpert, Health, Local news, NcoV, nCoV update, News, Outbreak, pandemic, Philippine news updates, rapid test, RITM, RT-PCR, Virus

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