House OKs bill mandating baseline PCR COVID-19 testing for vulnerable sectors

MANILA, Philippines — The bill mandating the conduct of baseline polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for “vulnerable members of society” in a move to stop the transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been approved on final reading in the House of Representatives.

With 240 affirmative votes, one negative, and no abstention, the lower chamber approved House Bill No. 6865 or the “Crushing COVID-19 Act.”

The bill seeks to reduce COVID-19 mortality through early detection and management as well as “significantly” slow down the doubling time for the COVID-19 infections in the country.

Thus, under the bill, several sectors deemed to be “vulnerable” shall undergo baseline PCR testing.

This includes patients or healthcare workers with severe or critical symptoms, mild symptoms, and those who demonstrated no symptoms but with relevant history of travel or contact.

Also included are non-health frontliners responding to the pandemic such as personnel manning temporary treatment and quarantine facilities of the government at the local and national levels; personnel manning quarantine control points, including those from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection, and other agencies; and social workers providing amelioration and relief assistance to communities and performing COVID-19 related tasks, among others.

The tests would also cover persons with co-morbidities, and other health risks such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, pulmonary diseases, cancer, renal failure, obesity, pregnancy, old age, and the immunocompromised who are returning to work.

Those who are are entering the Philippine territory coming from abroad, workers who are holders of quarantine passes who do lots of the errands for their families during quarantine, and patients required bu their physicians to submit a baseline PCR test result prior to a procedure or operation shall also undergo the tests, the bill states.

While the bill covers various sectors, priority should be given to the following:

-Healthcare workers
-Sales personnel in public markets, groceries, and supermarkets
-Food handlers
-Factory workers
-Construction workers
-Security guards
-Drivers of public utility vehicles
-Banks and transfer fund facilities personnel
-Laundry shop workers
-House helpers
-Caregivers
-Pregnant women
-Embalmers
-Wellness and salon workers
-Uniformed personnel
-Media personnel
-Barangay health workers
-Family members whose household has a dweller who went abroad from December 2019 until the present time

However, Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin, one of the principal authors of the bill, said that pooled testing PCR testing would be in place for asymptomatic vulnerable persons to maximize government resources.

“Pooled PCR testing means swabbing all vulnerable asymptomatics, combining their swabs in groups of ten and testing each group as one,” Garin told INQUIRER.net.

“A negative result means the ten people pooled together are all negative,” she added.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) shall cover the full cost of testing, including the cost of services of the pathologist, laboratory specialist and other laboratory staff.

COVID-19 testing centers shall likewise allocate a percentage of their daily testing capacity for the aforementioned vulnerable sectors.

As of June 4, there are 20,382 COVID-19 cases in the country, with 4,248 recoveries and death toll at 984.