MORE than a year after the onset of the global pandemic, the government now plans to ramp up its testing capability by as much as 90,000 tests per day – using antigens.
“The experts and the national task force recommended that we ramp up our tests in the NCR (National Capital Region) and other provinces to upwards of 80 to 90,000,” testing czar Vince Dizon said.
Interviewed over television, Dizon hinted on a plan to be able to meet the required number of testing per day – by using antigen test kits certified by the World Health Organization and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) along with the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.
The use of antigen test kits, he explained, will help the government to quickly identify those infected with the virus as it can yield results in just a few minutes.
“Right now with PCR, we are limited to 24 to 48 hours, but if we ramp up using targeted antigen tests in areas like hospitals, like very dense communities around Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces, we will be able to detect more cases faster in just a matter of minutes. That is the most important thing right now,” he said.
Malacañang earlier hinted at buying 500,000 antigen kits to ramp up COVID-19 testing capabilities in the country.
However, the antigen testing kits being referred to remain far from being used because the Office of Civil Defense has yet to wrap up its procurement documents.