The Department of Health (DOH) said that priority should be given to healthcare workers, senior citizens, and individuals with comorbidities when conducting reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) COVID-19 testing.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that “testing shall be recommended and prioritized for instances where result of testing will affect the clinical management.”
“RT-PCR testing shall be prioritized to A1 (healthcare workers), A2 (senior citizens), A3 (those with comorbidities) individuals. This is because those above 60 years old or with comorbidity can be provided with different medicines or antivirals within the first five days of their symptoms,” she explained in a forum.
“For healthcare workers, surveillance or screening of healthcare workers ensures adequate healthcare system capacity to implement care in our facilities,” she added.
Vergeire also said that “testing shall now be optional for community-level actions.”
“Specifically, testing should not be required for asymptomatic close contacts, instead symptoms monitoring is recommended,” she said.
“Testing should not be recommended for screening asymptomatic individuals,” she said.
However, if a COVID-19 test should still be performed, the “testing should be done at least five days from the day of exposure.”
“At this point wherein we already have community transmission, contact tracing is not recommended as a priority intervention,” she said.