The Office of the Vice President (OVP) will start on Tuesday, March 30, its free mobile swab service that will aim to ramp up the testing capacities of communities and local government units (LGU) with high coronavirus transmission rates.
In a post on her social media accounts, Vice President Leni Robredo said the Swab Cab will use antigen test kits to do community-based surveillance testing to fast-track the detection of possible COVID-19 positive cases.
“We will do antigen testing to target those without symptoms and no known exposure to COVID positive cases,” she tweeted.
“Hopefully, this will prevent those asymptomatic and who have not yet been tested from further transmitting the virus,” Robredo added.
The vice president pointed out that the antigen tests, which only take about 15 to 20 minutes, will supplement and support the RT-PCR tests that usually take about one to two days to process.
The Swab Cab will have its pilot area in Malabon City, which is the first LGU to respond to the OVP’s call for mass testing, on Tuesday. It will run for a week until April 6.
A day before the pilot run, the Malabon city government is expected to identify the barangays where the rapid testing will commence.
“We will (be) using FDA-approved antigen test with high efficacy rate. First batch of tests will be from privately-donated funds. But our office is ready to appropriate funds for more if urgently needed,” her post read.
Speaking on her weekly radio show, Robredo then said that the program was made possible by her private partners, Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership and UBE Express Inc.
These are the same groups she worked with during the lockdown last year when her office rolled out the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) to hospitals and the transportation of health care workers to health facilities.
Surveillance testing
Robredo was quick to clarify that antigen testing is not a replacement for the RT-PCR test, considered to be the gold standard in COVID-19 detection.
Right now, she said that RT-PCR is being done for people with COVID-19 symptoms and their contacts.
“Ang reklamo nung partner LGU parang doon sa community, ‘di na nila alam sino meron dahil ang taas ng transmission (The complaint of the partner LGU is in the community, they do not know who has it because of high transmission),” Robredo said.
The lady official also said that the Swab Cab is part of a “bigger program,” and is not a “standalone program.”
Robredo understands that there are some concerns from the health care community about giving a “false sense of security” to people who will be tested negative by the antigen test.
Before the test can be administered to individuals, she said that there will be an orientation about it.
If an individual tested positive, he will be isolated in a facility and an RT-PCR test will be conducted on that individual the following day, she added.
On March 26, the Philippines logged its highest tally of COVID-19 cases at 9,838 with a positivity rate of 17.3 percent.