10.5K COVID-19 testing kits from China on their way to Cebu City

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Testing kits for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) are on their way to Cebu City.

Cebu City Health Officer Daisy Villa said that the city has purchased at least 10,500 testing kits from China to fastrack the testing of persons under monitoring.

Villa said this would allow the city to know if the patient is a carrier of the virus, although this is not a confirmatory test and the samples will still be sent to Manila for confirmation.

Still, the test would help the city isolate potential carriers of the virus and prevent further contact from the public.

“We will get the results faster if we have our own testing kits,” said Villa.

Currently, the city sends its samples to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila, and with the many samples they are testing, the results take at least two weeks to return.

Out of the 65 samples sent by the city, only 10 results were returned and none of them proved positive to COVID-19.

The returned samples did not include the result from the lone person under investigation (PUI) who died while awaiting results.

Until now, the city is not sure if the person was a carrier of COVID-19 or not.

The city is expecting the arrival of the testing kits next week, and this would potentially increase the detection capability of the city over the spreading virus.

Councilor Eduardo Rama said that the China test kits are cheaper, that’s why the city chose to purchase them at short notice. He hopes the city can purchase better testing kits afterward.

The City Council is set to tackle the additional budget for the COVID-19 on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in a special session. /rcg