Expect higher number of COVID-19 cases due to better validation, says DOH
Posted at May 28 2020 07:53 PM
MANILA — Expect a rise in the number of reported coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the coming days, as the health department employed new encoders and improved its validation processes, an official said Thursday.
“Inaasahan pa rin po natin na sa mga darating na araw maaari pa rin pang tumaas ang ating mga kaso dahil patuloy na po tayong nakakapagvalidate ng mga kaso,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire during a briefing on Thursday.
Vergeire said the upward trend was also due to additional encoders.
Earlier in the day, the health department said it usually takes them an average of 3 days to validate if a positive test should be considered a confirmed case.
“For March we had an average of 3 days, 2.99 days. For April 2.8 days. For May average of 3.15 days. Ito yung time na nate-take para ma-validate natin ang kaso at mai-tag natin sya as confirmed (This is the time it takes to validate a case and tag it as confirmed). So an average overall of 3 days,” said Vergeire.
ABS-CBN News earlier reported about how the Philippines has thousands of positive patients who have yet to be officially confirmed as COVID-19 cases.
Validation is required to ensure that there are no double entries in the list of confirmed cases. DOH said validation is also hampered by the long process of name check and incomplete information coming from hospitals and laboratories.
On Thursday, DOH reported 539 new cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the highest number reported in a single day since the pandemic started, followed only by the 538 new cases recorded on March 31.
On Wednesday, laboratory data showed there were actually a total of 22,083 positive individuals.
But Vergeire emphasized that the number of test results will never be the same with the confirmed cases since some patients are required to take multiple tests for various reasons. Positive cases reported by the DOH is supposed to refer to “unique individuals” or those who have yet to undergo repeat testing.
She also pointed out that there are also new cases adding to the pile every day so they are not only looking at delayed validation.
“The number (of results for validation) decreases but it also increases (because of new test results),” she explained.
In the last two days, the Philippines has seen an increase of new confirmed cases of about more than 300 a day.
Vergeire attributed this to both an increase in the Filipino repatriates being tested and the faster validation due to the hiring of more encoders.
She said laboratory personnel were already trained to use COVIDKaya, a digital information system developed by the DOH with the World Health Organization. It is meant to minimize encoding errors by allowing patient data to be directly submitted digitally instead of through a manual form.
Vergeire said the new application would solve all of their problems in validation, especially since it allows the DOH’s Epidemiology Bureau to compare the incoming data with their line list of confirmed cases.
“We are working on this so once cross validation is complete we will see the actual picture,” she said.
