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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Quezon City to open molecular lab by end of August

Quezon City to open molecular lab by end of August

Published Aug 16, 2020 04:55 pm

The Quezon City government aims to open its own molecular laboratory by the end of August at Barangay Teachers Village East, where coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients can be tested.

In a statement released Sunday, the city government said it is only waiting for the approval from the Department of Health (DOH) to operate. It has already been accredited by DOH for level three.

The laboratory can process 500 tests per day with up to two days turnaround time.

Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said they used donations to retrofit a three-storey building into a laboratory, and buy supplies and equipment.

The laboratory will also have its own area for data encoding, and sleeping quarters for workers assigned to the facility.

Twenty members of the City Health Department (CHD), including medical technologists, pathologists, and laboratory manager, will man the molecular lab. 

They will undergo training for the "highly technical requirements" of the laboratory at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) next week.

Aside from processing COVID-19 tests, the molecular lab can also process medical tests for other diseases, such as tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and dengue, among others.

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