CAGAYAN de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno said the Department of Health (DOH)-Northern Mindanao is working on putting up a laboratory or testing facility to test the samples from patients with symptoms of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Moreno said he was informed by DOH-Northern Mindanao Director Adriano Suba-an that the possible candidate for a testing facility is the regional office of DOH.
“We have been advocating, urging mabutangan og (to place a) testing [facility],” Moreno said.
It can be recalled that in early March, the city mayor sent a letter addressed to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III requesting that a Covid-19 testing laboratory be set up in Cagayan de Oro considering the strategic location of the city in Northern Mindanao.
Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) Chief Dr. Jose Chan, for his part, said the testing laboratory will need a container to carry the sample for transport, a reagent or testing kit and a machine where the sample will be processed to determine whether the result will be positive or negative.
An expert will also be needed to interpret the results of the test.
“Dili na siya giingon nga overnight nato mahimo. Magpa-certify pa ta sa mga certifying body. Examinon na siya kung tinuod ba ang gi-require nga facility nakasunod sa standard ayaha pa sya ma-certify,” Chan said.
(This cannot be made possible overnight. We still have to be certified by a certifying body. It needs to be examined if the required facility follows the standards before it will be certified.)
At present, samples taken from patients under investigation (PUIs) admitted in NMMC are transported to the Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City for testing.