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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Luzon devider DOST donates COVID-19 detection equipment to Butuan City hospital

DOST donates COVID-19 detection equipment to Butuan City hospital

Published Aug 13, 2020 08:50 am

BUTUAN CITY – The regional office of the  Department of Science and Technology (DOST) here donated a unit of real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machine and one class II biological safety cabinet to the Butuan Medical Center (BMC) at Barangay Tiniwisan, Butuan City.

PHOTO FROM PIA.GOV/ MANILA BULLETIN

The RT-PCR will help detect and confirm the presence of the virus in swab samples from a suspected coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient.

The biological safety cabinet on the other hand is a containment device that will aid in the preparation of samples, protecting not only the sample material but also the laboratory worker from contracting the virus and the surrounding environment from contamination.

The total cost of the detection equipment is nearly P4 million.

“With this equipment,  we can already perform confirmatory tests in Butuan City and probably could also cater to other provinces upon request,” said DOST 13 Regional Director Dominga Mallonga.

Apart from the machine donated by the DOST Caraga, two other top-of-the-line RT-PCR machines were also given by the regional office of the Department of Health-Center for Health and Development  (DOH-CHD) Caraga and local government unit (LGU) of Butuan.

“The RT-PCR machines and molecular diagnostic laboratory will certainly increase the testing capacity of Butuan City,” Director Mallonga said.

“This is really a big help in our fight against COVID-19,” said Butuan City Mayor Ronnie Vicente C. Lagnada.

BMC Officer-in-Charge Medical Director Dr. Caridad Burdeos-Plete said the laboratory testing capacity will help to rapidly  identify, treat, and isolate COVID-19 positive patients.

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