Philippines get testing kits for coronavirus from Japan

January 29, 2020

The Philippine government Wednesday welcomed arrival of the testing kits from Japan that will help hasten the testing of suspected cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

In a press briefing, Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo disclosed that the reagents and primer sent by Japan is at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

"They are already setting up the laboratory. Hopefully, by Friday or Saturday, we can already do the testing there at RITM," said Domingo.

A reagent is a substance used to perform a laboratory test to detect or measure the presence of other substances.

A primer contains the specific sequencing of amino acid that identifiies a certain virus from the others.

Domingo explained that having the testing reagents in the country will make the turnaround time for the virus testing faster.

"It takes time to send our samples to Australia especially since these are possibly infectious substance. So we can probably reduce the process by 2 to 3 days," said Domingo.

Before the testing kit from Japan arrived, the DOH had to send samples of the virus from suspected cases to the Victorian Infectious Disease Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia. DMS