RICHARD A. REYES / INQUIRER
MANILA, Philippines — The government is set to bring down the price cap for RT-PCR testing, the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday, in a move to make testing cheaper amid the surge of COVID-19 cases.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the revised price cap was already presented to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID). However, she refused to disclose the proposed cap and said it should be the IATF that will release the announcement.
“It’s going to be IATF and the concerned agencies, DTI and DOH, to release the policy, pero naibaba nila ang price cap ng mga test na ito (but they were able to lower the price cap),” she told an online media briefing.
Under the DOH and Department of Trade and Industry guidelines, the price of PCR testing should not exceed P5,000 in private laboratories and P3,800 in public laboratories.
Vergeire said the government has also released a suggested price for rapid antigen test kits.
“Ang ating antigen test kit ay P960 ang nakalagay. Kasama na dyan ang operational costs ng mga laboratoryo (Antigen test kits should be priced at P960, including the operational costs of laboratories),” she said.
Vergeire said active case finding through COVID-19 testing has also contributed to the increase in cases being observed in recent weeks. She said that average tests per day increased by 20 percent, from 56,179 during the first week of August to 67,692 from August 22 to 28.