THE National Action Plan against Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) yesterday said a shortage of skilled personnel is the biggest challenge to government’s efforts to raise its testing capability and hasten processing of coronavirus tests.
Deputy chief implementer Vivencio Dizon, in an interview with ANC, said the government has hired additional medical technologists, asked for volunteers, and also asked some schools to provide government with skilled and qualified technicians to help in both government-run and accredited laboratories to expedite the processing of the tests.
“Now that we already have 85 labs, our supplies are coming in, our biggest challenge now is personnel,” he said adding that 85 laboratories nationwide have been accredited and the government is hoping to raise the current 25,000 tests a day to 30,000 daily.
Dizon also said the government has tested some 1 million people as of this week and aims to test up to 10 million within the year.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health said it sees nothing wrong with companies conducting rapid antibody tests on their employees as long as it is only done randomly.
The DOH has been saying that the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT- PCR) test remains the “gold standard” for COVID-19 testing.
“In workplaces, rapid antibody test is not recommended for mass screening of employees,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a TV interview.
“If within the company, it can be held every two weeks, but it’s not for everyone,” she added.
Vergeire said the antibody testing should be used only for “seroprevalence” studies of the company.
Seroprevalence is defined as the overall occurrence of a disease or condition within a defined population at one time.
“The random sampling is only for them to be able to monitor the trend of cases within the company or plant,” said Vergeire.
On Wednesday, the DOH announced the expansion of the coverage of the expanded RT-PCR testing for COVID-19 after introducing four new subgroups covered by the testing guidelines.
These are Subgroup G, which covers vulnerable patients and residents living in areas with clustering or with identified community transmission; Subgroup H, frontliners in tourist spots and facilities; Subgroup I, workers of manufacturing companies and public service providers, particularly those in the economic zones; and Subgroup J, covering “economic priority workers” such as drivers, conductors, pilots, flight attendants, waiters, restaurant managers and supervisors, teachers at all levels of education, bank tellers, cashiers, store clerks, hairdressers, security guards, and messengers.
In a briefing yesterday, Vergeire said members of the media are included in Subgroup J, “or those working in the high priority sectors with high level of interaction and exposures to the public,” said Vergeire.
With this, she said all individuals covered by the 10 Subgroups shall have their tests covered by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation or private healthcare insurance firms.
Vergeire also stressed that those not yet covered by the subgroups can still get tested via RT-PCR but that they will have to shoulder its expenses.
The first subgroups cover patients and health workers with severe symptoms and exposure to coronavirus patients or areas with confirmed cases (Subgroup A); patients with mild symptoms, vulnerable, and have exposure to coronavirus patients or areas with confirmed cases (Subgroup B); those with mild symptoms and exposure to coronavirus carriers or areas with confirmed cases and the last priority group (Subgroup C); those with no symptoms but have exposure to coronavirus patients or areas with confirmed cases (Subgroup D); personnel manning quarantine facilities, barangay health emergency response teams, personnel of Bureau of Corrections and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, and social workers (Subgroup E); and other vulnerable patients such as pregnant women who shall be tested during the peripartum period, and those living in confined spaces and others (Subgroup F). — With Gerard Naval
