CEBU CITY — Free coronavirus testing opened to the public here on Friday in a bid to treat those infected with the virus and contain the spread of the disease.
The “drive-thru and walk-thru” COVID-19 testing at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City was the first outside Metro Manila and was meant to expand the services of the government to more people, especially those who can’t afford a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, which costs around P8,000.
“In drive-thru swabbing, you don’t even need to go out of your car. It’s just like when you are going in a drive-thru of a fast food chain. We simply want the community to get tested. This is for the public and this is for free,” said lawyer Rey Cris Panugaling, head of VSMMC’s Information, Communication and Strategy Management Office.
The services can be availed of from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Monday to Friday at a kiosk located outside the VSMMC.
RT-PCR test, which uses actual swabs from a patient’s nose or throat, is the most popular testing method for COVID-19 in the Philippines and is still considered by health authorities as the “gold standard” for detecting the coronavirus.
The other method—rapid antibody test—requires the patient’s blood sample and can only detect antibodies. The body produces antibodies in response to an infectious agent such as a virus.
Panugaling said they are targeting to conduct RT-PCR test to at least 200 persons a day at 10 to 20 clients per hour.
There will be no lunch breaks, he said, to ensure that everyone who wants to be tested would be accommodated.
Those who want to be tested must first register online at https://bit.ly/vsmmconline to secure an appointment.
An appointment schedule and an identification card issued by the government have to be presented prior to the actual swab testing.
Panugaling said results of the COVID-19 tests would be sent through email after four days.
If a person tests positive for COVID-19, the local government unit, where he or she comes from, would also receive a copy of the test results from the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the Department of Health (DOH) in Central Visayas so that local officials can immediately conduct contact tracing.
The program is in line with the expanded testing guidelines issued by DOH in memorandum 2020-0258-A.
The government earlier opened two free drive-thru testing facilities in Manila—one at Plaza Lawton near city hall and one at the Quirino Grandstand.
A walk-in testing center was also established at the Ospital ng Sampaloc and will soon be available in other hospitals in the city such as the Ospital ng Tondo and Ospital ng Maynila.
As of July 23, Cebu City still has the most number of COVID-19 cases among the local government units in the country at 8,467 with 4,770 recoveries and 441 deaths, according to the DOH.
At least 1,165 persons were admitted in hospitals while 2,091 others stayed at the different quarantine facilities in the city.