By Warren Elijah Valdez DAVAO CITY - Mayor Sara Duterte said on Monday that there are ongoing moves to establish more coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing centers in the Davao region as she underscored the need to increase the testing capabilities of health services in Mindanao. Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte
(FACEBOOK / MANILA BULLETIN) Duterte said a local government unit from Davao del Norte has already partnered with the University of the Philippines (UP) to put up a COVID-19 testing center. In a previous interview, that city mayor bared that the city government was already helping a private hospital comply with accreditation requirements to be a COVID-19 testing center. Management of another private laboratory has also conveyed to her their intention of also putting up a facility to test for the dreaded coronavirus. “nd we are helping them in their requirements to be a COVID-19 testing center,” said Duterte, who also noted that the capability of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in this city to test for COVID-19 was inadequate. As such, she said the city government has identified another facility as a testing center, and only needs some renovations subject to the approval of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and the Department of Health (DOH). “Those are the three centers prepared for Davao City,” Duterte said. Duterte, however, dashed the possibility of mass testing even with the establishment of more testing centers. She said the city do not have the needed preparations for mass testing because “our capacity to mass test are only with rapid test kits and the doctors said that rapid testing should not be used for mass testing.” “It might be that those who tested false-negative will be sent back to the community and then it will be found out that they are positive, instead,” she said. “Because if we are going to say mass testing, this would mean more than a thousand will have to be ran with swabs and to test in a day. But right now the SPMC cannot do that. And even if we can make three laboratories, it cannot run a testing into the thousands per day,” Duterte added.