PH eyes to clear 7,000 tests backlog in 2 weeks

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is eyeing to address around 7,000 COVID-19 tests backlog in two weeks, the Deputy Chief Implementer of the government’s coronavirus response said Thursday.

Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) President Vince Dizon, who is also the designated testing czar, said the government has met with all the accredited coronavirus testing laboratories and agreed to resolve the backlog at the soonest possible time.

“Kampante tayo na sa tulong ng ating private partners na sa loob ng dalawang linggo ay mauubos natin itong backlog na ito at tuluy-tuloy ang pagtaas ng ating tests per day at ng ating capacity,” Dizon said in a televised press brifieng in Malacañang.

(We’re confident we can clear this backlog in two weeks.)

The Philippines so far has 28 licensed laboratories nationwide that conduct real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests in detecting SARS CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19.

Meanwhile, two more laboratories were accredited to conduct tests through the GeneXpert rapid testing which can provide results after 45 minutes — way faster than the RT-PCR test which has a turnaround time of at least 24 hours.

The Department of Health (DOH) earlier announced it has finally reached 8,000 daily testing capacity on Sunday.

The government is eyeing to achieve 30,000 daily tests by the end of May.

The DOH on Wednesday reported 145 new COVID-19 recoveries, a record-high increase posted in a single day, bringing the total of recoveries to 2,251.

Meanwhile, the confirmed coronavirus cases nationwide rose to 11,618 as the death toll now stands at 772.