Gov’t to ramp up COVID-19 testing by using 30,000 antigen kits per day

Testing czar Vince Dizon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC

MANILA, Philippines — The government will further boost its daily testing capacity for COVID-19 by adding 30,000 antigen tests daily to augment RT-PCR testing in areas under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), testing czar Vince Dizon said Monday.

He said the daily testing capacity is averaging 50,000 RT-PCR tests and this will be augmented by an additional 30,000 antigen tests.

However, the antigen tests will only be limited to the “NCR Plus bubble” or Metro Manila, Rizal, Laguna, Bulacan and Cavite, where there is a high prevalence of COVID-19 cases.

“Nag-desisyon po ang IATF [Inter Agency Task Force for the Managament of Emerging Infectious Diseases] na magdagdag tayo ng 30,000 antigen tests per day pero limitado lang po ito sa NCR plus area dahil po ang antigen test ay dapat ginagamit lang sa mga area na mataas ang prevalence ng COVID-19,” he said in a statement.

(The IATF has decided to increase to 30,000 the antigen tests a day but this is limited only to NCR Plus area because the antigen test is being used in areas with high prevalence of COVID-19 [cases].)

“Ito po ay gagamitin ng mga ospital para i-test ang kanilang mga pasyente pati ang mga healthcare workers at mga mayors para mag-test sa mga barangays na madaming kaso,” Dizon added.

(This will be used by hospitals to test their patients and healthcare workers and also mayors to test barangays with a lot of [COVID-19] cases.)

The IATF likewise authorized the Office of Civil Defense to procure 500,000 sets of antigen test kits that were either validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) through its emergency use listing or those that passed rigorous tests by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

So far, only three antigen brands met government standards, which include Abbott’s Panbio, SD Biosensor and Lansion flourescence antigen test, Dizon said.

Based on RITM’s findings, the Lansion antigen test kit has an average sensitivity of 91.43%, while average specificity is 97.54%, the highest among all available antigen tests kits in the country. The rating is also similar, if not at par, with RT-PCR tests.

Local distributor LabX Corporation, in a statement, claimed Lansion boasts of 100% specificity in catching asymptomatic patients which are widely regarded as superspreaders.

Biomedical engineer and LabX head Tom Navasero claimed the Lansion antigen kits have 100% specificity and are not prone to human error since a fluorescent analyzer machine reads the results using lasers.

Navasero added that Lansion test kits can produce results in 30 minutes unlike RT-PCR which takes 24 hours or more to determine whether a patient is positive or negative for COVID-19.

JPV