COVID-19 testing in Philippines to expand to 10 million, says Palace

July 3, 2020

The Philippine government is expanding further its testing for coronavirus disease to 10 million persons, Malacañang said on Friday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said this was contained in the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases Resolution No. 51 dated July 2.

He said the recommendations of the National Task Force in consultation and coordination with the Department of Health Technical Advisory Group and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation were approved.

One of the approved recommendations was the "expansion of the testing strategy to fully utilize the ten million tests" procured by the procurement service of the DOH, Roque said.

The NTF and the DOH will jointly prepare and finalize the guidelines for the testing targets and implementation items and timelines for the expanded testing strategy, he added.

Aside from the symptomatic and those who have contact with the COVID-19 positive individuals, the official said to be tested include asymptomatic and frontliners, possibly including the media.

"In principle, it's approved that we will test beyond those who are symptomatic. But let's wait for the actual guidelines to be issued by the NTF and the Department of Health," he said.

As of June 30, the DOH reported that there were 738,398 cumulative  samples tested by 67 testing laboratories in the country with positivity rate of 7.1 percent. Celerina Monte/DMS