4 specimens of COVID-19 tests in VSMMC sent to RITM for further confirmation
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) has announced that they have delivered four samples of the pilot Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests that they conducted to the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) for confirmatory tests.
At a press conference at the Capitol on Saturday, March 21, 2020, Dr. Jaime Bernadas, DOH-7 director, said results were already produced for the 50 patients admitted at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) who underwent the COVID-19 testing.
Of the 50, Bernadas said 46 yielded negative of the virus while the remaining four were now subject for further confirmation from RITM.
Bernadas told members of the media that since they were still in the first stage of doing COVID-19 testing, there would be some results that needed confirmation from RITM.
“If this is a trip, it’s a maiden voyage. That’s why we have questions, and some of the results were vague. We sent four samples and results to RITM for confirmation,” said Bernadas.
COVID-19 testing at VSMMC commenced on Thursday, March 19, 2020 with an initial batch of 100 test kits.
30,000 test kits procured by the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV) arrived a day after or on Friday, March 20, 2020.
Persons admitted in hospitals and were displaying severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) would be prioritized for testing./dbs
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