LAST week, about watching men. This week, an Erratum on that piece, with due apologies. The name of current New York Governor Cuomo is Andrew. Mario was his father, who was also New York governor in the past.
This week too, watching hope.
Another man whom we watch is Dr. Raul V. Destura who, along with his team of 15 scientists, are credited with the invention of the local, low-cost Covid-19 testing kits that have just rolled out this week, after weeks of rigorous testing. The roll out has now increased the country’s capacity for rapid testing. The need for the said kits cannot be overemphasized, because if we don’t test, we don’t detect.
More credit where it is due: The local detection kit was developed with funding from the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD). According to Destura, it took over two weeks of sleepless nights for him and his team of 15 UP scientists to develop said kit. Cost-wise, it is widely reported that the published selling price of the local kit is P1,320 per test, certainly besting the P8,500 or so per test of the foreign version/s.
Then there are the engineers of the UP Diliman College of Engineering (COE) who were reported on April 6 of this year to be developing a chamber that uses ultraviolet light to decontaminate the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) used by health workers. The report referred to by this column was written by Eldan Sambatyon for Good News Pilipinas.
An April 22 post by the UP Media and Public Relations Office on the official university website confirms this. As a matter of fact, said post lists other projects that UP Diliman CoE is working on: Pooling together all 3D printers across the university system for the production of PPE, the development of a prototype adult ventilator, a movement tracker for registered Persons Under Investigation (PUI; the tracking solution will help assess possible contamination in an area), and the creation of a mobile plasma treatment apparatus for the disinfection of hospital walls, emergency rooms, walkways, PPEs, health utilities like air filters, and office equipment.
Special mention: The post also states that “Dr. Enrique Ostrea, Jr. (UP Med’65), patent holder of a ventilator for newborns, has waived his right to the patent to shorten the prototype development of the proposed adult ventilator.”
All these initiatives give us hope.
As does word of a “UPLB team working on test kits using a newer DNA analysis technique,” according to the Facebook page of one Carmina Bayombong, dated April 22. Her FB page also states that the team have already started, but they need PhP3.85M to get the new method ready for the FDA approval process. Bayombong says that she is helping gather more donors for UPLB. Many reactions to her post on her page itself are on the vein of just to secure government funding, rather than to crowdsource it.
It’s mine, too.