The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has so far conducted over two million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) tests.
PRC Chairman Senator Richard Gordon announced Sunday, Feb. 28, that the humanitarian group already marked two-million COVID tests milestone, as of last night, Feb. 27.
“Marami tayong milestones, umabot na tayo ng two million kagabi na na-test natin. (We have achieved many milestones, we have tested two million, as of last night),” he told ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo in an interview on Sunday.
He said a total of 2,025,863 individuals have been tested by the PRC.
Based on the document presented by Gordon, the PRC has conducted 2, 002, 277 COVID-19 tests nationwide. The number of the saliva reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests conducted by the PCR was not included in the count, Gordon said.
The PRC has conducted a total of 23, 586 saliva tests, the document showed.
Gordon said 37 percent of Metro Manila has been served by PRC’s COVID-testing laboratories.
The PRC has also been conducting saliva RT-PCR test, which it said, “is as effective” as the nasopharyngeal swab test.
In the same radio interview, Dr. Paulyn Ubial, who heads PRC's Molecular Laboratory, expressed hope that more Filipinos would be subjected to COVID-19 tests.
“Ineexpect natin na dadami pa ang magpapatesting sa buong bansa. Nine percent pa lang ang nate-test po natin, or mga 75,000 per one million population (We expect that more will be tested nationwide. We only tested 9 percent or about 75,000 per one million population,” the former Health secretary said.
"Mababang mababa po 'yan sa mga testing na ginagawa sa UK na halos naka 100 percent and sa US malapit na po silang mag hundred percent ng kanilang population tested (It is very low compared to the testing conducted by UK which is almost 100 percent and the United States is almost reaching its target of hundred-percent population tested),” she said.