DOH looking into COVID-19 test labs failing to report for days —Vergeire

The Department of Health is checking on some COVID-19 testing laboratories after being unable to submit any reports on cases for the past several days, Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

In a press conference on Thursday, Vergeire said the department already reached out to Allegiant Regional Care Hospital in Central Visayas about the matter.

Vergeire added that DOH is currently identifying another testing laboratory for COVID-19 that failed to update on their results for the past days.

“We are trying to coordinate now with Allegiant kung bakit hindi siya nakakapagsa these past days.Tapos meron pa isang laboratoryo na in-identify that was not able to submit a report,” she said.

“So titingnan natin,” she added.

According to Vergeire, usually some laboratories were missing the deadline for the submission of reports on COVID-19 cases. She said the department set a 6 p.m. deadline for these reports.

“Kapag lumalagpas sila doon, mag-submit sila ng alas diyes, hindi na sila papasok doon sa roster namin na sinabi namin na 42 out of 50 reported,” she said.

Vergeire said DOH is looking into the issues behind the failure to report.

Meanwhile, Vergeire said there was a discrepancy earlier between the number of COVID-19 cases from the laboratory submissions and the reported cases in DOH bulletin.

Vergeire explained that DOH has to validate the reports from laboratories through checking any duplication of cases and errors in names.

She said DOH also checks if the cases are already tagged to other laboratories and recorded to the Epidemiology Bureau.

Aside from the discrepancy between the number of positive cases in laboratories and the reported cases in its bulletin, DOH said some laboratories still have over 1,400 backlogs. —LBG, GMA News