Worried that the implementation of the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program could suffer serious delays, some health experts called for a new wave of massive COVID-19 testing in the Philippines.

Dr. Emilio Q. Villanueva III, a pathologist and immunogenetics expert, said doing so could help contain the transmission especially of a new contagious coronavirus strain which is already now present in the Philippines.

“The new COVID variant, which first appeared in the United Kingdom can spread more easily from person to person,” Villanueva said during a Kapihan sa Manila Bay virtual forum on Wednesday.

“Vaccines may not arrive in the Philippines as quickly as we hoped. Thus, we must test faster. We must test now,” Villanueva said.

Thomas Navasero, Cornnel University-trained biomedical engineer Thomas Navasero of LABX Corp. echoed Villanueva’s call and said that observance of the test, isolate, and treat protocol has now become more imperative.

Only the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) have the capacity to undertake genetic sequencing to spot differences between the original strain and the UK strain of the virus at the DNA level.

Both experts agree that the COVID-19 can be detected by antigen and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests regardless of the variant.

Navasero said, cheaper, accurate and faster antigen tests such as Sofia 2, FINA and AgILA –that all use Fluorescent Immunoassay Technology (FIT)— are available in the Philippines.

He said Sofia 2 was the first rapid point-of-care antigen test approved for emergency use by the United States Federal Drug Administration (US-FDA) in May last year and was also validated by the Department of Health (DOH) based on Memorandum Order No. 0468.

“Sofia 2, FINA and AgILA antigen tests all boast of near-perfect sensitivity at nearly half the price of RT-PCR tests,” Navasero said.

“All have 100 percent specificity and not prone to human error since a fluorescent analyzer machine reads the results using lasers,” he explained.

He also said FINA and AgILA tests can even show a person’s numerical viral load, while Sofia 2 uses color codes to indicate mild, moderate or severe infections. AgILA can test up to 120 patients an hour using a single fluorescent analyzer.

Navasero added that major sports organizations in the US rely on antigen testing to safely resume competitions. The Office of the President (Malacañang) and the Presidential Security Group, the House of Representatives, and a number of local government units (LGUs) and private companies are using these antigen tests.