Gov't eyeing to manufacture 94,000 COVID-19 test kits -Nograles

The Philippines is seeking to manufacture as much as 94,000 COVID-19 testing kits to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Inter-Agency Task Force spokesperson Karlo Nograles said Thursday.

Nograles, in a teleconference hosted by the Tokyo-based non-government organization Asian Productivity Organization, said the government is developing such COVID-19 testing kit in a joint effort with the UP National Institute of Health and private firm Manila Healthtech Company.

“We want to create our testing kits. We are done with field trials, and the 26,000 test kits are under field implementation phase,” Nograles said.

“Once that is done, we want to have 94,000 COVID-19 test kits and we want to make it available to our laboratories,” he added.

As it is, Nograles said the country is conducting an average of 3,000 COVID-19 tests per day, and that the government will work on reaching a target of 8,000 to 10,000 COVID-19 tests per day before the enhanced community quarantine is lifted expectedly on April 30.

Likewise, Nograles said the Philippine government is also working on increasing the number of its laboratories, which currently stands at 16.

“There are 50 other laboratories awaiting accreditation as we aim to expand our testing efforts, isolate those infected in quarantine facilities, as well as isolate those awaiting [COVID-19 test] results,” Nograles said.

Further, Nograles justified President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to purchase rapid test kits which have lower accuracy than that of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine by citing that rapid test kits can be used at least for the confirmatory test of those who already recovered from the COVID-19.

“Of course, there are questions on the efficiency of rapid test kits, but we want to utilize it in a way that it does not sacrifice the accuracy,” he said.

“We were told that we can use the rapid test kits at least for the confirmatory test of those who already recovered from the COVID-19. Kasi po kapag IGG [antibody] positive na, it is a clearance na the person already developed an antibody against the COVID-19,” Nograles added.

As it is, Nograles said that patients who have recovered from COVID-19 still undergo confirmatory tests using PCR machine in accredited laboratories.

“This is an effort in trying to close the gap in our testing measures,” he said.

The Philippines has recorded 5,453 COVID-19 cases so far. Of this number, 349 have died, while 353 others recovered. --KBK, GMA News