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54 labs certified for COVID-19 testing —DOH


The Philippines now has 54 laboratories that have been certified to conduct independent testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to the Department of Health (DOH).

In its COVID-19 report on Sunday, the DOH said 41 of these facilities are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) laboratories, while the other 13 are GeneXpert laboratories.

The latest facilities to receive accreditation were the Ospital ng Imus and the Dr. Arturo P. Pingoy Medical Center.

A total of 141 other institutions are undergoing the five-step laboratory accreditation process, 112 or 79% of which are already at Stage 3 and above.

Among the 41 PCR laboratories, 24 are in Metro Manila while the others are in the Cordillera Administrative Region and Regions I, III, IV-A, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and XI.

The certified laboratories have tested 395,221 individuals as of June 6, 7 percent of whom tested positive for COVID-19.

These figures do not include data from 12 laboratories that were not able to submit their reports to the DOH by the 4 p.m. cut off time.

The DOH earlier announced plans to expand testing to include certain asymptomatic subgroups after laboratories performed more than 10,000 tests daily for four days straight last week.

However, the number of samples processed fell below the 10,000 mark to 9,366 on June 6.

The Philippines has logged 21,895 COVID-19 cases with 4,530 recoveries and 1,003 deaths as of Sunday afternoon.  — Julia Mari Ornedo/BM, GMA News

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