SPMC now ready to undertake confirmatory tests on COVID-19
Published Mar 29, 2020 12:00 am
By Warren Elijah Valdez
DAVAO CITY - The Southern Philippines Medical Center here can now perform confirmatory tests for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) independently, according to City Mayor Sara Duterte.
Southern Philippines Medical Center -SPMC - Davao City (FACEBOOK/MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
In an interview with Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) on Saturday, Duterte revealed that SPMC now has the capability to conduct laboratory testing without sending the samples to the Research Institute for Tropical Medication (RITM) for revalidation.
“SPMC will no longer rely on RITM. We can conduct confirmatory testing independently and hopefully the test results will be released earlier so that we can identify who tested positive and negative,” she said.
As such, Duterte also said results of more COVID-19 positive cases should be expected in the city.
“As the results took long to be released before, we should expect for these numbers of positive patients to increase. And there are also possibilities that some positive patients are roaming around the city already,” she said.
SPMC had been designated as the only hospital in the city to house COVID-19 patients and persons under investigation (PUI) with moderate, severe and critical conditions.
Meanwhile, SPMC chief of clinics and health emergency Dr. Ricardo Audana also said that the current roster of COVID-19 patients was all tested at the SPMC.
He said that these new confirmed cases are now at the isolation facilities of the region’s government-run hospitals.
Audan also bared that the first batch of testing kits, which were 100 kits in total, have all been used already. Meanwhile, the second batch of these reagents which arrived recently have already been used to test currently admitted patients under investigation (PUIs) in the hospital.
He said that there were 67 PUIs currently confined in their isolation facilities still waiting for their test results.
The SPMC has a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine that detects COVID-19 and other infectious diseases which can process 30 specimens per batch. According to SPMC chief Leopoldo Vega, in a previous report, it can take about eight hours for a batch of 30 patients to be tested.
The bayanihan concept in this province is working very much today and we can observed that government agencies and the people in Sulu has joint hands in fighting the entry of COVID-19 to the province, Tan claimed.
To many, the virus has practically “unite” the Muslims in Sulu. They are now fighting the COVID-19 pandemic disease as one to free the people and the province from the virus, Tan revealed.
Tan said the people in Sulu continued to experienced free from COVID-19 while under the enhance province wide community quarantine.
He said “ we are COVID-free as of this time but we can't really rule it out because we have no testing kit in this province.”
Tan said the provincial government has continued to prevent the entry of all type of vessels coming from the nearby Tawi-Tawi province and from Sandakan, Malaysia except cargo ships carrying prime commodities for the people in the province.
The move he said aim to free the people in the province from possible contaminating the COVID-19.
Tan revealed that as of yesterday (Sunday) that the province has recorded minimal Persons Under Monitoring (PUMs) while 17 Persons remained Under Investigation (PUIs).
Southern Philippines Medical Center -SPMC - Davao City (FACEBOOK/MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
In an interview with Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) on Saturday, Duterte revealed that SPMC now has the capability to conduct laboratory testing without sending the samples to the Research Institute for Tropical Medication (RITM) for revalidation.
“SPMC will no longer rely on RITM. We can conduct confirmatory testing independently and hopefully the test results will be released earlier so that we can identify who tested positive and negative,” she said.
As such, Duterte also said results of more COVID-19 positive cases should be expected in the city.
“As the results took long to be released before, we should expect for these numbers of positive patients to increase. And there are also possibilities that some positive patients are roaming around the city already,” she said.
SPMC had been designated as the only hospital in the city to house COVID-19 patients and persons under investigation (PUI) with moderate, severe and critical conditions.
Meanwhile, SPMC chief of clinics and health emergency Dr. Ricardo Audana also said that the current roster of COVID-19 patients was all tested at the SPMC.
He said that these new confirmed cases are now at the isolation facilities of the region’s government-run hospitals.
Audan also bared that the first batch of testing kits, which were 100 kits in total, have all been used already. Meanwhile, the second batch of these reagents which arrived recently have already been used to test currently admitted patients under investigation (PUIs) in the hospital.
He said that there were 67 PUIs currently confined in their isolation facilities still waiting for their test results.
The SPMC has a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine that detects COVID-19 and other infectious diseases which can process 30 specimens per batch. According to SPMC chief Leopoldo Vega, in a previous report, it can take about eight hours for a batch of 30 patients to be tested.
The bayanihan concept in this province is working very much today and we can observed that government agencies and the people in Sulu has joint hands in fighting the entry of COVID-19 to the province, Tan claimed.
To many, the virus has practically “unite” the Muslims in Sulu. They are now fighting the COVID-19 pandemic disease as one to free the people and the province from the virus, Tan revealed.
Tan said the people in Sulu continued to experienced free from COVID-19 while under the enhance province wide community quarantine.
He said “ we are COVID-free as of this time but we can't really rule it out because we have no testing kit in this province.”
Tan said the provincial government has continued to prevent the entry of all type of vessels coming from the nearby Tawi-Tawi province and from Sandakan, Malaysia except cargo ships carrying prime commodities for the people in the province.
The move he said aim to free the people in the province from possible contaminating the COVID-19.
Tan revealed that as of yesterday (Sunday) that the province has recorded minimal Persons Under Monitoring (PUMs) while 17 Persons remained Under Investigation (PUIs).