By Zaldy Comanda
BAGUIO CITY – The city government admitted that the lack of available test kits at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC), the accredited sub-national testing center in Northern Luzon, has been hampering the conduct of mass testing of frontliners so that it could properly assess the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation in the city.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong
(JJ Landingin / MANILA BULLETIN)
Mayor Benjamin 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 said that aside from this backlog, the 4,000 reverse transmission polymerase chain reaction-based (PCR) test kits donated to the city government by SM foundation were still with the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) because of some alleged lacking consumables.
Magalong claimed that even the Department of Health (DOH) has been having difficulty sourcing out PCR-based test kits amidst the clamor for mass testing.
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.
Magalong said 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.
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, was 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 2,299 PCR-based tests for city residents while the city government performed 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.