PUERTO PRINCESA CITY –– This city’s Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) would have to “prioritize who will undergo swab testing” as the local government’s “resources continued to dwindle.”
Lawyer Norman Yap, co-spokesperson of the city IATF-EID, told the City Council on Monday morning that the Ospital Ng Palawan’s (ONP) GeneXpert laboratory is now down to “about 90 cartridges” for its coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing.
The projected number of cartridges would not meet the testing demands as the recent two persons deprived of liberty (PDL) ballooned the number of suspect cases, or persons considered to be close contacts, to at least 90.
“Over the weekend, the two PDLs yielded to 90 or more suspect cases. We believe that these are the priority,” Yap said.
“We need to recognize how limited is the resources. Just over the weekend, we were told that our cartridges for RT-PCR swab are dwindling to a point that in the next two weeks if the rate of increase would continue at this pace, we will no longer have additional cases only because we can no longer test them,” Yap added.
Yap also added that the requests made to the Department of Health (DOH) regional office were still pending as the Palawan province remained to be “not a priority” despite topping the MIMAROPA region with the most number of recorded COVID-19 positive cases at 46.
“The initial feedback was right now we’re not a priority,” Yap said when asked by the Council to update on the procurement of additional cartridges.
Romalyn Racho, regional head of Health Education and Promotion Unit of the Department of Health (DOH), in a separate message to the Inquirer Monday, denied the said claim and pointed out that at least 300 replenishment cartridges were on its way to ONP.
“It’s on the forwarder [cartridges]. Maybe today or tomorrow it would arrive,” Racho said.
Yap also added that the City IATF has decided to purchase a “COVID-19 testing container,” a mobile testing center, to boost the City’s testing capacity.
“A decision has been made two weeks ago by the city government to purchase a containerized testing facility including cartridges. with cartridges already included,” Yap added.
In Mimaropa COVID-19 tally, Palawan led the region with the highest number of reported cases at 46 followed by Occidental Mindoro with 45. Oriental Mindoro has recorded 27 confirmed COVID-19 cases, while Romblon and Marinduque both held six patients each, as of 3 p.m., Sunday.