CEBU, Philippines — The Mandaue City Council yesterday passed a resolution requesting the Department of Health and the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) to set up another testing laboratory for COVID-19 cases in Cebu, including the DOH–run Eversley Childs Sanitarium Hospital.
Councilor Jimmy Lumapas said that Cebu has a huge population, yet it only has one accredited testing center, the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center-Sub-National Laboratory (VSMMC-SNL) in Cebu City.
“With the efforts of the DOH and the Inter-Agency Task Force to conduct massive mass testing all throughout the country and with more COVID-19 testing paraphernalia coming in, the fact remains that more testing laboratories are also needed to be setup by the national government in order to increase the number of tests conducted per day,” the resolution of Lumapas read.
Pursuant to Executive Order No. 67 (series of 2020), Mandaue City was placed under enhanced community quarantine lastMarch 30 in order to allow more stringent measures to be implemented to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the city now has swabbing booths to safely take COVID-19 swab samples from suspected individuals.
According to the Mandaue City Public Information Office, the use of the swabbing booths to take swab samples will lessen the exposure of healthcare workers to droplets from people infected with the virus. It will also reduce the need for personal protective equipment, which is on limited stock.
The healthcare worker enters the sealed booth while the patient positions himself in front of the booth where the swabbing will be performed.
The samples taken will then be sent to the VSMMC-SNL for processing.
The swabbing boothswill also be disinfected regularly.
The Department of General Services and the City Health Office worked together to make this project possible. — JMD (FREEMAN)
Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon (The Freeman) – April 28, 2020 – 12:00am
