The local government of Valenzuela City has been given a green light from the Department of Health (DOH) to operate its own coronavirus disease (COVID-19) laboratory that will increase the number of samples it can conduct daily.
Mayor Rex Gatchalian on Tuesday said the city's own two-storey molecular laboratory already passed its final stage for accreditation and has received a license to operate.
Complementing the capacity of the city's five-partner laboratories, Valenzuela's new laboratory will be able to process 270 samples per day and will increase to 540 once another machine has been procured.
In a recent interview, Gatchalian said the new laboratory will also allow the local government to achieve its target of testing 10 percent of its total 664,000 population for COVID-19 by the end of the year.