A total of 553,197 people have undergone COVID-19 test as part of government’s effort to further strengthen the country’s testing capacity, Presidential Peace Adviser and National Action Plan Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr., said in a presser held at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City on Friday night.

“Nagtamo rin po tayo ng record na halos 15,000 actual tests conducted sa isang araw noong June 16 and we are looking to increase this dramatically once our supply chain will be solved by next week,” Galvez said.

As an update, Galvez also announced the procurement of 239,857 RT-PCR test kits which can test approximately 8,544,282 individuals.

He said the PS-DBM (Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management) will procure additional 15,700 test kits which can test 1,293,750 more individuals.

“Having all these test kits, we will now be able to test nine million eight hundred thirty-eight thousand and thirty-two (9,838,032) in total,” Galvez said.

Galvez said at present, the country already has 62 accredited testing laboratories with 46 RT-PCR labs and 16 GeneXpert labs.

“One hundred fifty-six (156) namang laboratoryo ang nag-aantay ng kanilang accreditation and license to operate. Mayroong 27 testing laboratories ang NCR, 17 sa Southern at Northern Luzon, 7 sa Visayas, at 9 sa Mindanao,” Galvez said.

“Sa kabuuang bilang, sa 62 na laboratoryo, 40 ang public laboratories, at 22 naman ang private laboratories,” he added.

Galvez said all regions in the country except for CARAGA region has testing laboratories and at present they are fast-tracking the accreditation of three of their laboratories.

The Chief Implementer said in conjunction with the government’s efforts to strengthen its testing capacity is the improvement of its contact tracing capability.

“Sa ngayon, meron na po tayong 52,870 members. This include 4,348 PNP, 1,332 BFP personnel and AFP support,” Galvez said.

TheTribune