DOH accredits 4 more labs for COVID-19 testing, total now at 89

There are now 89 laboratories nationwide licensed to conduct independent testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after four more received accreditation, the Department of Health (DOH) said Sunday.

In its daily COVID-19 report, the DOH said the country now has 67 accredited polymerase chain reaction (PCR) facilities and 22 GeneXpert laboratories.

The latest PCR laboratories to be certified are those of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, the Mary Mediatrix Medical Center, the Philippine Red Cross' Cebu chapter, and the University of Cebu Medical Center.

There are also 180 other laboratories undergoing the five-step accreditation process, 160 or 89 percent of which are already on Stage 3 or above.

The licensed laboratories have tested 1,058,764 individuals as of July 18, 89,387 of whom tested positive for a positivity rate of 8.4 percent.

Meanwhile, an average of 22,579 samples were processed by 85 laboratories per day in the past week, 17,501 of which came out positive for COVID-19 for a weekly positivity rate of 11.7 percent.

The World Health Organization’s benchmark for positivity rate is less than 5 percent.

The Philippines has logged 67,456 COVID-19 cases with 22,465 recoveries and 1,831 deaths as of Sunday afternoon.  — Julia Mari Ornedo/BM, GMA News