BAGUIO CITY March 23 – The Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) disclosed that it is now running out of Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 10`9 test kits for the conduct of the initial screening of persons under investigation (PUIs) from the different parts of Northern Luzon.
BGHMC medical center chief Dr. Ricardo R. Ruñez said that there are only 18 test kits that are remaining from the 100 COVID test kits received by the hospital from the health department and the Manila-based Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
He added that since BGHMC started conducting the initial screening of PUIs, there were 20 tests per day that were conducted that resulted to the immediate depletion of the limited supply that was provided to the sub-national testing center by the health department.
The BGHMC official claimed that of the 52 tests that were undertaken by the hospital to the identified high risk PUIs, 47 tests turned out negative while 5 tests turned out positive and were immediately transmitted to the RITM for the conduct of confirmatory tests.
The medical officer revealed that the designated sub-national testing center will have to temporarily cease operations once the provided limited supply of test kits will be exhausted considering the influx of individuals with severe COVID symptoms.
Earlier, the health department designated the BGHMC as one of the sub-national testing centers in the country to conduct the initial screening of high risk COVID suspects coming from the different parts of Northern Luzon to lessen the burden of performing all the COVID tests in the RITM.
Aside from the BGHMC, the other designated sub-national testing centers include the RITM and the San Lazaro hospital in Metro Manila, the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Visayas and the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Mindanao.
For her part, DOH-CAR regional director Dr. Amelita M. Pangilinan said that the regional office already sent 2 teams to Metro Manila to submit to the RITM the test results of the presumptive COVID suspects for confirmatory tests and try to access the additional supply of test kits that will be used in the BGHMC, one of the designated sub-national testing centers.
She admitted that the regional health office is not aware on how many test kite as be provided by the RITM to the designated sub-national testing center in the north but she expressed optimism that there will be a significant increase in the test kits that will be provided to allow the center to test more presumptive COVID suspects.
The health officials asserted that the sub-national testing center will still observe the priority individuals who will be subjected to the initial screening and that they are the ones that possess the severe COVID symptoms and those with underlying medical conditions.
According to them, moderate risk PUIs will be referred to the established local containment area where they will have to undergo the prescribed 14-day quarantine under the strict supervision of health workers to allow them to recover from the dreaded virus while awaiting their confirmatory test results of their swab samples referred to the RITM for confirmation.
By Dexter A. See