BAGUIO CITY– The city government admitted the lack of available test kits in the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC), the accredited sub-national testing center in Northern Luzon, hampered the conduct of mass testing of frontliners to ascertain the situation of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in the city and to determine the portion of the population infected with the virus.
Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong said that based on the latest information from the BGHMC, it has a backlog of more than 1,500 confirmatory tests from the different parts of Northern Luzon where some 25 percent of the same are tests of city residents.
He disclosed that aside from the aforesaid backlog, the 4,000 reverse transmission polymerase chain reaction-based (PCR) test kits donated to the city government by SM foundation is still withheld by the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) because of some alleged lacking consumables while the 10,000 test kits being eyed by the city for purchase with the test kits produced by the University of the Philippines (UP) can not be realized the soonest.
The city chief executive claimed even the health department is having a difficulty sourcing out PCR-based test kits amidst the clamor for mass testing of the frontliners and the vulnerable sectors of the city thus the efforts being done to access available source of test kits to jumpstart the mass testing in the city.
Supposedly, the city government is targeting to test some 36 percent of the city’s 370,000 population and was to initially start the mass testing of some 200 frontliners daily starting April 27, 2020.
According to him, the city government will have to procure some 1,000 rapid diagnostic test kits from accredited suppliers to implement the risk-based testing of the frontliners and those who are critically ill and individuals with severe symptoms while awaiting the operation of the designated sub-national testing center to normalize once test kits become available from the health department.
Health authorities pointed out that the mass testing of frontliners and the vulnerable sectors of the city, especially those with symptoms of the deadly virus, is the ultimate remedy to isolate infected individuals to prevent them from locally transmitting the virus and not spread it to the community.
Initially, the BGHMC finished some 2,299 PCR-based tests for city residents while the city government performed over 1,058 rapid tests over the past several weeks.
City officials and health authorities are awaiting the resumption of the operation of BGHMC once test kits from the health department arrive and address the existing backlog and conduct more tests.
By Dexter A. See