Saliva COVID test pushed

MANILA, Philippines — Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said the head of fuel company Seaoil Philippines is supportive of the so-called saliva COVID test, another cheap and quick test that Concepcion has been pushing after the controversy that was the rapid antibody tests.

In a statement on Tuesday, he said he had a meeting with Seaoil Philippines president Glenn Yu, who asked for his support “in the implementation of another breakthrough in COVID-19 testing — saliva COVID test.”

“Yu discussed the possible contribution of saliva test in reviving the economy and helping micro, small and medium enterprises to bounce back,” the statement read. A representative of Seaoil Philippines confirmed this to the Inquirer.

“This simpler and minimally invasive testing method from Israel uses AI (artificial intelligence) technology and has the potential to reduce the result turnaround to less than a second, lower the cost of testing and produce high-reliability percentage. This will also definitely reduce the demand for scarce testing resources,” it added.

Concepcion said this strategy could be used in airports, ports and terminals where institutions can conduct mass screenings to identify even asymptomatic patients with a low viral load.