Zubiri wants DOH to come up with testing protocols

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri has urged the Department of Health (DOH) to come up with protocols for testing and dealing with patients who recovered from COVID-19 to avoid confusion over "false positives".

Zubiri made the appeal after he again tested positive for the coronavirus, only to find out from a confirmatory swab test on Tuesday that he was actually no longer infected with the disease.
 
"We are more than four months into this pandemic, and we should have perfected or at the very least attained a certain degree of expertise and accuracy in our testing capability," the senator said in his privilege speech during their Tuesday plenary session.
 
Zubiri said he consulted doctors and infectious disease experts and read studies stating that patients who recovered from COVID-19 may still possess remnants of the COVID-19 virus, which are no longer contagious and "merely a trace of the virus".
 
He said the DOH should consider these factors in its testing protocols and screening of patients. "It could not be one-machine- or one-system-fits-all," he said.
 
"The DOH should be more prudent in testing and releasing the result of recovered patients. Should they have their tests after a certain period, say two or three months? Are those repetitive tests necessary for recovered patients, if these will certainly turn out to be false-positive?" he asked.
 
Zubiri also raised its implication to the accuracy of the government's data on the COVID-19 cases.
 
"If our testing protocols are not accurate or suited to the conditions of patients, whether they are new infections or recovered patients, we may not be presenting a clear picture of the number of COVID cases. It could be higher, or it could even be lower than the current figures, due to false-positive or false-negative cases," he said.
 
Aside from this, he also noted the "anxiety and mental anguish" that the false positives cause to the recovered patients, their families, and the people who interacted with them.
 
"With what happened yesterday, I unintentionally caused anxiety and perhaps even panic to some of my colleagues and workers of government in the Senate—not to mention the stress I caused my wife and children. I thought my father and mother were going to have a heart attack from the stress they received last night," Zubiri said as he apologized to his colleagues and loved ones.
 
"That’s why the DOH must come out with the right protocols dealing with recovered patients, so they won’t be discriminated against in the future," he appealed.
 
In a letter to Senate President Vicente Sotto III, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III explained that the RT-PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests are "very sensitive and can detect the virus and virus genetic materials remnants."
 
Duque, sought for advice by senators following their interaction with Zubiri on Monday, said the senator's close contacts "need not necessarily be quarantined since this is most likely not a true infection."
 
"As a layer of safety, close contacts may be tested using PCR five days after their last contact, but is not necessary," he added.
 
Zubiri contracted COVID-19 in March and recovered a month later.