MORE patients under investigation (PUI) in Davao Region and other parts of Mindanao will be tested for coronavirus virus (Covid-19) after the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) received some 5,000 testing kits from the Department of Health (DOH).
SPMC chief Dr. Leopoldo Vega said on Tuesday, March 31, that SPMC, one of the identified subnational laboratories of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to independently conduct its own testing, has been given more testing kits by the national government last week.
“We have enough test kits, 5,000 were given to us,” Vega said.
The health facility is using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to detect the actual presence of the virus. It can determine if an individual is positive with the virus even when he/she is asymptomatic.
The combined nasopharyngeal (NP) and oropharyngeal (OP) swabs from the patient will be processed inside their molecular laboratory. The result will come out within 24 hours.
The availability of test kits in the region is one of the factors identified with the sudden spike of confirmed patients. Within their level, SPMC can release the report of confirmed cases without validation from RITM in Muntinlupa City.
“Since independent na kami with our results, hindi na namin pinapadala sa Manila for confirmation since we can run almost 60 tests an average per day. We were able to increase our results in terms of positive cases kaya dumami bigla,” Vega said.
However, Vega said that it doesn’t mean that the ratio for the testing would be one patient is to one testing kit. He added that during their first testing, only 58 patients were tested for the 100 testing kits since the result has to be rerun, then revalidated and if there are doubts, it will undergo another confirmatory test.
Based on DOH Davao Regional Situation Update as of 8 p.m. on April 1, Davao Region has a total of 61 confirmed Covid-positive patients. Nine of them died while 18 have recovered.
Davao City topped the most number with 49 confirmed cases in the region, followed by Davao del Norte with six, Davao Oriental (3), Davao del Sur (2), and Davao de Oro (1).
Meanwhile, DOH Davao Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (DOH-RESU) chief Dr. Cleofe Tabada said considering that SPMC is the only subnational laboratory in Mindanao, other regions have started coordinating with them and sending samples of their patients to be tested.
As of Tuesday, Tabada said 69 patients’ samples from Northern Mindanao, Soccsksargen, and Caraga regions have been processed.