Duterte deploys COVID-19 task force to increase mass testing in Mindanao
May 2, 2020 – 6:04pm
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte sent Saturday the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease chief implementor Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. to ensure the immediate establishment of laboratory testing centers in this city following the rising number of reported COVID-19 cases.
Galvez arrived Saturday here with his Deputy Secretary Vince Dizon, who is also the presidential adviser on Flagship Programs and Projects, and Government Service Insurance System President and General Manager Rolando Macasaet. They inspected the laboratory testing facilities for the mass testing.
“The president told me that I need to visit all the places, especially those areas COVID cases were considered subliminal and undetermined due to lack of testing laboratory,” Galvez told people from the press here after inspection of all laboratories.
Galvez said their visit was also to assess the situation on the ground following the request of the city government to extend the enhanced community quarantine until May 15 due to the increasing number of COVID-19 patients and slow test results.
He said the IATF and Interior and Local Government Secretary Aduardo Año considered the lockdown in this city following the report of more inmates who contracted the virus.
The local IATF earlier reported that at least 18 persons deprived of liberty and a jail employee of the City Reformatory Center tested positive for COVID-19.
Galvez described the surge of new cases in the city jail as “very alarming.”
The official said they considered geography as reason for the lockdown, citing that Zamboanga City is the “centerpoint” of the Zamboanga peninsula, which also connects the three island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in southern Philippines.
“This is the melting pot where the people are converging here. So we see the geographical vulnerability here,” Galvez said.
COVID-19 cases in the city also continue to increase daily which is a “red flag”, Galvez said.
“With this we decided to have the initial ramping up of testing capacity and brought with us 1,100 of gene experts,” Galvez said.
The gene experts will help increase the city’s testing capacity without sending its specimens to Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Manila and Southern Philippine Medical Center in Davao City.
Galvez visited the testing laboratories, particularly the Zamboanga City Medical Center (ZCMC), the Department of Agriculture PCR laboratory and Red Cross laboratory.
Dizon said the testing laboratory at ZCMC will be the first to operate next week
The two other testing centers are expected to operate two weeks later, said Macasaet.
Philippines to increase testing capacity by May 15
Galvez said the Philippines will increase its testing capacity to 30,000 per day by the end of May.
“Once our testing centers will be operating, we will be increasing now the testing,” Galvez said.
He said each testing center will gradually increase its testing capacity to 1,000 per day.
Galvez said around 3 million test kits will be used for mass testings, especially in barangays with high number of COVID-19 cases.
“This is the only way we can lift the ECQ,” Galvez said.
