LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Testing of frontliners and members of the vulnerable sectors for the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been enhanced following the arrival of some 10,000 swab kits with consumables to prevent any increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases that might compromise the province’s quarantine and isolation facilities.
Benguet caretaker congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap made the appropriate representation with the health department for the province to be provided with a sufficient allocation of test kits to ensure the sustained implementation of targeted and expanded testing to ensure the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases will remain at a normal level unlike what had happened in the previous month.
He said the use of available swab kits will still be left to the discretion of the health department but the same should be used for the testing of the swab samples of suspected and probable COVID-19 patients coming from the different municipalities although the testing is being done in the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC), the designated sub-national testing laboratory in the Cordillera.
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Last month, Congressman Yap sourced out some 10,000 test kits that were similarly turned over to the BGHMC primarily to be used for the test requirements of frontliners and members of the vulnerable sectors from the different parts of the province.
Yap said the testing of probable COVID-19 patients will still have to be undertaken by the BGHMC while the construction of the province’s molecule laboratory within the Benguet General Hospital (BeGH) is still underway.
According to him, he will continue to exert extra effort in sourcing out sufficient supply of swab kits and consumables to sustain the ongoing targeted and expanded testing in the province because testing is the only feasible means to ascertain the portion of the population that is infected with the deadly virus primarily because of the presence of asymptomatic individuals who transmit the virus to innocent persons.
He assured the BeGH molecular laboratory capable of performing tests for COVID-19 and other strain of the virus will be operational within the next two to three months to help in improving the country’s testing capacity and equipping the local health facility in preparation for its future conversion into a hospital managed and supervised by the health department.
The lawmaker claimed he is closely monitoring the construction of the province’s molecular laboratory to make sure Benguet will not be left behind in the implementation of started and expanded testing among a portion of the population so that those who possess the symptoms of the virus could already be isolated in the different quarantine and isolation facilities in the different municipalities.
Yap stated there can be a significant increase in the number of probable COVID-19 patients that will be tested once the BeGH molecular laboratory will be opened for the benefit of the people coming from the different parts of the province.
By Hent
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