Sec. Vince Dizon undergoing COVID-19 testing at SMC’s new lab
MANILA, Philippines — Over 800,000 individuals have so far been tested for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Department of Health (DOH) bared on Tuesday.
“We have a high of 19,500 tests done last week, and we now have already tested about 800,000 plus individuals,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.
Vergeire said the country already has 75 licensed laboratories for COVID-19 testing and that the average of actual COVID-19 tests conducted is at 17,500 per day.
The Philippine government aims to conduct 1 million tests for the coronavirus disease by July, following the recent arrival of over 1 million test kits.
The country previously exceeded its goal of 50,000 daily testing capacity by June, with 51,302 daily testing capacity as of June 19.
On Monday, the DOH reported over 2,000 additional cases of infection for the second straight day, bringing the nationwide tally to 46,333.
A total of 12,185 patients have so far recovered while 1,303 others expired.