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DOH accredits 4 more labs for COVID-19 testing, total now at 93


There are now 93 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 70 accredited polymerase chain reaction (PCR) facilities and 23 GeneXpert laboratories.

The latest PCR laboratories to be certified were those of the De Los Santos Medical Center, the Daniel O. Mercado Medical Center, and the San Pablo College Medical Center, while the latest GeneXpert laboratory to be licensed was the Amang Rodriguez Memorial Center.

There are also 91 other laboratories undergoing the five-step accreditation process, 85 percent of which are already on Stage 3 or above.

The licensed laboratories have conducted a total of 1,334,541 tests as of July 25, 110,910 of which turned out positive for a positivity rate of 8.92 percent.

Meanwhile, an average of 26,352 samples were processed per day in the past week, 20,161 of which came out positive for a weekly positivity rate of 11.8 percent.

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

The Philippines has logged 80,448 COVID-19 cases with 26,110 recoveries and 1,932 deaths as of Sunday afternoon.  — Julia Mari Ornedo/BM, GMA News

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