A medical worker places a swab in a vial while testing for COVID-19 a homeless person in Miami, Florida. | AP photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – After a ‘slight delay’, the Cebu City Government will resume coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests for drivers of traditional jeepneys.
And similar to the one conducted on vendors in Carbon Public Market, it will be done through pooled sampling.
The city government on Wednesday, November 11, announced that the COVID-19 tests intended for jeepney drivers registered under the Balik Pasada Program of Cebu City are scheduled to take place this Monday, November 16.
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In a follow-up text sent to CDN Digital, Councilor James Anthony Cuenco, head of the city’s Jeepney Task Force, confirmed that the city will be doing it through pooled sampling.
Once the tests will start, officials said they are aiming to screen around 100 drivers per day for SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent for COVID-19.
“Apan kadtong mag positibo, dili kini mahilakip sa nahisgutang programa (Those who will test positive will no longer be included in the program),” the city’s public information office (PIO) said.
To recall, the city was supposed to test 200 drivers for possible COVID-19 infection last Monday, November 9.
However, it was postponed after they were advised by representatives from the Department of Health (DOH) that individual, real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) coronavirus tests should be made for diagnosis purposes only.
Hence, they recommended for the city to conduct pooled swab testing, a laboratory technique earlier initiated upon over 1,000 vendors in Carbon Public Market, the city’s largest wet market.
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Pooling or pooled sampling, as defined by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, is the technique of combining respiratory samples from several people and conducting one laboratory test on the combined pool of samples to detect SARS-CoV-2. /rcg