Binay bats for free RT-PCR test in COVID-19 high risk areas

Senator Nancy Binay on Thursday asked the government to conduct “free cluster” RT-PCR testing in highly-dense communities and areas with high COVID-19 cases.

In a statement, Binay noted the country’s “poor” testing capacity, urging the Department of Health and the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease to rationalize its testing and screening strategies to prevent community transmissions.

"Kulelat pa rin tayo  (We are still lagging behind). Why are we not testing enough? What happened to the target of 90k-100k tests daily? Given the country's low testing capacity, how can we be effective in isolating carriers and spreaders?" she asked.

The lawmaker said these RT-PCR tests can be done by the DOH, in coordination with the local government units, in communities placed under hard lockdown and in critical zones where surges have been reported.

“The goal is to test more, not to test all. We don’t need to test everyone. What we need is a rationalized, more targeted cluster approach to suppress the spread of the virus at the community level--wag naman yung shotgun approach," Binay said.

She emphasized that localized community testing, contact tracing and disease surveillance should automatically be part of the zoning containment strategy.

With the emergence of the Delta coronavirus variant, Binay said the DOH should primarily use RT-PCR testing and not antigen tests.

“Sayang lang ang ilang milyong pisong binili ng gobyerno na antigen test kits dahil di pwedeng gamitin ang antigen sa genome sequencing lalo na sa bagong variants," she pointed out.

(The government has wasted millions of pesos in buying antigen kits because these can’t be used in genome sequencing needed to detect new variants.)

Binay said she expects the positivity rate in the country to rise once the government expands its testing capacity.

Currently, she said the positivity rate is at around 14% with daily average tests of 57,000.

Moreover, Binay said the government should adopt the practices of LGUs like Navotas where the local officials have come up with strategies that would enable them to test as many individuals as possible for free to curb community infection.

"Kung kaya ng Navotas na magkaroon ng libreng 24/7 testing operation, bakit di magawa ng testing czar na gawin ding 24-hour operation ang government testing facilities?” she asked.

“Aside from vaccination, what we need is a prompt and timely testing of individuals for free especially those who are at risk of being infected with the virus," Binay added.

GMA News Online has sought testing czar Secretary Vince Dizon’s comment on Binay’s statement. He has yet to respond as of posting time.

In March, Dizon said the government is planning to ramp up COVID-19 tests to 80,000 to 90,000 per day in Metro Manila and nearby provinces by using antigen kits approved by the World Health Organization and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

In April, Dizon said the daily average number of COVID-19 tests in the country has already reached 60,000.—LDF, GMA News