Parañaque City to have its own COVID-19 molecular laboratory

PARAÑAQUE CITY, Sept. 8 (PIA) -- Parañaque Mayor Edwin Olivarez announces that the city will soon have its own molecular laboratory that could process at least a thousand COVID-19 test samples a day.

“Gusto ko pong ipalaam sa ating CODE (Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic) [Team], sa pangunguna po ni [National Action Plan Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer] Sec. [Carlito G.] Galvez [Jr.] na ang atin pong siyudad ay inumpisahan na po na magtayo ng sariling molecular laboratory at ‘yan po ay tinatarget po, nagsubmit na po kami sa Department of Health ng application po doon,” Olivarez said during the CODE Team visit last week.

“Nagko-coordinate po kami sa inyo po, at tinatarget po natin itong molecular laboratory na ito ay ma-operate sana before end of September or early October para po may sarili na pong molecular laboratory ang lungsod ng Parañaque,” he added.

Parañaque City Health Officer Dr. Olga Virtusio said the city will purchase at least four automated reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines which are capable of conducting more than 1,000 tests per day.

“The new molecular laboratory will increase our capacity for testing,” she said, pointing out that testing will be the key in separating infected individuals from their communities, and isolating them in order to curb the spread the disease.

Virtusio said the city will be “pulling out slowly” the rapid testing testing kits they have in their inventory. The RT-PCR is considered to be the gold standard in COVID-19 testing because it can accurately detect the virus compared to the rapid test, which can only detect antibodies.

The encouraging news, he said, is that least 81.3% of the 4,800 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city have recovered.

“Our current active [number of COVID19] cases is 767, and we are proud to say that we have very low deaths in the city of about 2.7%. With the combined efforts of both the barangay and health frontliners, we have somehow delayed the doubling time of cases in the city [for the past] 37 days,” Virtusio said. (NTF Against COVID/PIA-NCR)

Source: Philippines Information Agency (pia.gov.ph)