Screengrab of Testing Czar Secretary Vince Dizon during a Malacañang media briefing. (PIA NCR file)
CALOOCAN CITY, March 31 (PIA) -- The National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) Deputy Chief Implementer and Testing Czar Secretary Vince Dizon on Tuesday said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has decided to add 30,000 antigen testing per day in NCR Plus to further boost COVID-19 detection.
Due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, the areas under NCR plus or the National Capital Region (NCR), Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal have been currently placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to immediately curb virus trajectory.
Dizon said the antigen testing will be on top of the average 50,000 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction or RT-PCR daily testing nationwide, bringing the country-wide testing capacity of around 80,000 per day.
“We target the OCD [Office of the Civil Defense] to procure 500,000 [antigen test kits] to deploy in communities and hospitals in ECQ areas,” he said.
Dizon, however, cited that there are only three antigen test kit brands that can be procured by the OCD. These are the Panbio Rapid Ag Test, verified by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Use Listing Procedure; Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM)-validated Lansion Biotech Dry Fluorescence Immunoassay; and the WHO- and RITM-validated SD Biosensor Standard Q.
“These will be used in hospitals to test their patients and health care workers, as well as mayors to test communities with a high prevalence of COVID-19,” he explained, citing the country also now has 239 laboratories that process these COVID-19 screening.
Dizon also said the Philippines currently ranked third in terms of coronavirus testing capacity among Asian countries with over 100 million population, as the country has already breached the 10 million tests mark since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He added that daily COVID-19 testing capacity of the country is also higher than Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and only next to India and China.
Dizon said the country’s average daily testing reached 51,104 between March 22 and 28 this year, with the highest daily tests on March 20 at around 57,000 RT-PCR tests. (PIA NCR)
Source: Philippines Information Agency (pia.gov.ph)
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