Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion announced the arrival of extraction machines and testing kits from Chengdu and Shanghai, China.
These will be used in the implementation of the Go Negosyo Pooled Testing Initiative.
Formal announcement of the results of the research of the Philippine Society of Pathologists Inc., the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, and the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine will be held Monday via Zoom and Facebook Live.
These equipment and kits were donated by private sector partners BDO Foundation, Ayala Corp., National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, RFM Corp., PLDT-Smart Foundation, LT Group Inc., Wilcon Depot, Yazaki-Torres Manufacturing Inc., First Philippine Holdings, GT Capital Holdings, Unilab Corp., Mercury Drug, and Federation of Filipin Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. through Go Negosyo.
CDO Foodsphere Inc., Penshoppe, Angkas, Universal Leaf Philippines Inc., Century Pacific Food Inc., Philippine Transmarine Carriers Group, and Lazada Philippines pledged their support for NCR-wide testing initiatives.
“The private sector will fund a pooled PCR testing pilot for 16 cities and one municipality in NCR this month. That represents about 160,000 pooled PCR tests that will be done for this part of the research. This will be a game-changer for our country. We will also bring more private sector companies to support more cities in NCR. It could speed up testing, increase the capacity, and make it cheaper. Testing will create greater visibility,” said Concepcion.
Concepcion highlighted the importance of innovation and adapting containment strategies as the situation continues to involve, along with information on the virus.
“We have to innovate and try as many viable testing strategies as possible. Since the pandemic started, we in the private sector have been advocating and leading available testing innovations. We have been through different types of testing such as Rapid, PCR, and now Pooled Testing. Maybe sooner or later, we might explore other successful models being done in other countries such as antigen test, which is a new type of diagnostic test designed for rapid detection of the virus that causes COVID-19."
"Pooled testing will not only bring down the cost of testing to P450 per person in pools of 5s; P350 per person in pools of 10s, and P250 per person in pools of 20s, inclusive of the P150 fee for the virus transport medium, or VTM, swabs, but it also deals with protecting our healthcare workers, hastening the turnaround time,” ARK PCR private implementor Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said.
“It is also expected to optimize the availability of test kits, reduce the workload of laboratory staff, eliminates large groups of negative cases, makes PCR testing more available, provides LGUs and businesses with a better and clearer direction, and restores confidence in returning to work while sustaining the gains of the initial lockdown.”
The Go Negosyo team, headed by ARK Team Lead Josephine Romero, was present during the arrival of automated extraction machines that will be used in the semi-robotic pooled testing pilot implementation designed to test asymptomatic individuals. Present also were Go Negosyo’s Aeron Morado, Sophia Ramos, and Samantha Sadorra.
The equipment is set to be distributed to Go Negosyo Pooled Testing hospitals and laboratory beneficiaries as part of an NCR-wide testing campaign.
Go Negosyo, the Department of Health, and Deputy Chief Implementer of COVID-19 Response Vince Dizon joined forces in support of a pooled testing strategy to further increase the Philippines’ testing capacity and bring prices down. Crushing COVID is a joint collaboration of both the private sector and government to make workplaces safer and help communities adapt to the new normal.
The equipment and supplies are expected to test 100,000 public market vendors and drivers as well as employees and owners of MSMEs and LSIs.