Local test kit out in a month?

In less than a month, scientists from the University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health and the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) may roll out a commercial version of the local testing kit they have developed for suspected patients of COVID-19.

Raul Destura, PGC deputy director and the lead scientist behind the project, said his team will be testing the low-cost diagnostic kits in select hospitals as part of its validation process. The field validation tests for the “GenAmplify COVID-19 rRT-PCR Detection Kit was expected to be completed in two to three weeks, Destura said.

The team has tapped infectious disease experts from Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu, Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao, Philippine General Hospital and The Medical City in Metro Manila and the Baguio General Hospital in Northern Luzon to test the initial 500 kits for validation.

The locally produced kit finished its laboratory performance testing as early as February, but it has to undergo diagnostic clinical sensitivity, including genome sequencing through partner hospitals before it can be officially rolled out to the public.

“The development of [a new] technology has to undergo a long process and we have a moral responsibility to ensure public safety when we put [it] out, so we’re asking for a little more patience from the public,” Destura said of the kit that cost P1,320 per test compared to P8,500 per test of its foreign counterpart.