The Parañaque City government’s reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) Molecular Laboratory is now operational after it was opened on Feb. 11.
Mayor Edwin Olivarez said the city’s molecular laboratory is located at the fifth floor of the Ospital ng Paranaque (OSPAR) II in Don Bosco.
Olivarez said the OSPAR II was established in February 2020 and a month after the country was hit with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the hospital was transformed into a treatment and monitoring facility.
The hospital’s location was formerly used by about 200 to 300 informal settler families, which were relocated after the city government decided to build another health facility for those living in Parañaque’s second district.
The mayor said the formal opening of the molecular laboratory is also part of the celebration of the city’s 23rd founding anniversary and the hospital’s first anniversary.
Olivarez thanked Dr. Jeff Pagsisihan, medical director of OSPAR 1 and 2, who coordinated with Dr. Paz Corrales, assistant regional director of the Department of Health (DOH), in setting up the molecular laboratory.
He said before the molecular laboratory was opened, it took three to four days or even a week before the city could get the COVID-19 swab test results from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang, Muntinlupa.
Olivarez said Pagsisihan told him that with the city’s own molecular laboratory, the result can be known in 24 hours. The laboratory will also be used for other tests.