Detained Senator Leila de Lima has urged the Senate to conduct an inquiry into the current state of the COVID-19 diagnostic testing in the country in light of the emergence of new variants.
De Lima said it is imperative to evaluate and assess the country’s current diagnostic testing protocols since the new strains and variants of the coronavirus disease may affect the quality and reliability of testing results.
“There is a need to conduct a Senate inquiry into these matters to ensure that our testing capabilities and results are reliable and up to date in order to preserve the health and safety of the general public and ensure that the health protocols in place are still effective and responsive,” De Lima said in filing Senate Resolution No. 612.
“It is better to be proactive than reactive given the uncertainty and imminent threats of these recent developments,” she added.
De Lima said the first case of the UK COVID-19 variant has already been documented in the Philippines last Jan. 13 after samples from a Filipino who arrived from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Jan. 7 yielded positive genome sequencing results.
With the evidence of the variant being more contagious mounting, the lawmaker said the government must step up in order to be ahead of the situation, “lest it becomes too late.”
“It is vital that we heed the opinion of scientific and medical experts that warn us that SARS-CoV-2 virus can mutate over time, resulting in genetic variation in the population of circulating viral strains,” the former justice secretary said.
“In recognizing this inevitable event, the State must be ready in combatting new strains that are already here and could arise in the future to avoid further exacerbating our medical frontliners who have been making the ultimate sacrifice in stemming the spread of the virus,” she said.
She added that the rollout of the much-anticipated vaccination program should not cause a slackened approach to other factors that could help mitigate the spread of the virus such as testing.
“While investigations and studies are ongoing to clarify the extent of these possible implications, the State must continue to ensure that our testing capabilities are regularly assessed and recalibrated to respond to the times,” De Lima said.
“It is also prudent to inform the public, through a Senate inquiry, how the DOH and Inter-Agency Task Force for the management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) is preparing our health system in the eventuality that new and potentially more infectious variants of COVID-19 are detected in the country and further transmission occurs,” she said.