By Vanne Elaine Terrazola
Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri has declined Health Secretary Francisco Duque's offer to have him tested again for coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Sen. Juan Miguel "Migz" Zubiri
(Senate of the Philippines / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
Zubiri on Thursday turned down Duque's plan to have him undergo re-testing as he raised the possibility that his being positive for the disease might be a "false positive."
"There’s a lot of buzz in the news of Sec. Duque’s statement that I may be false positive and that I may need another test. That, sir, may not be necessary at all," he said in a statement to reporters.
"With all due respect to our dear secretary, I feel that the remaining available testing kits should be utilized by those who need them the most, like frontline medical personnel and symptomatic patients especially the elderly."
Zubiri said he believes his test result was accurate, recalling this time that he a slight fever last March 11 and had been asymptomatic by Monday.
Confident that he is "beating the virus," the Senate leader said he will just continue his quarantine and isolation for eight more days before being tested again.
He clarified that the testing kit that will be used for his post-isolation test will not come from government sources but a private organization called Art Rocks, which will also be donating kits from South Korea to frontline hospitals.
Zubiri on Monday night announced that he tested positive for COVID-19. He believed that he contracted the disease from one of the visitors to Senate.
Earlier, it was disclosed that a resource person at a March 5 Senate hearing was a COVID-19 patient.