By Analou De Vera
The Department of Health (DoH) said that it did not use some coronavirus testing kits from China after it was found to only have 40 accuracy rate.
“Sa mga naunang pinadala sa amin na test kits from China na nakapagpakita ng 40 percent accuracy — hindi po natin ito ginamit dahil nakita na mababa ang accuracy natin dito. Kaya ito nalang po ay ating itinago,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing on Saturday night.
The Health official was unable to give further details on how many of these test kits from China had shown 40 percent accuracy detection rate.
“Pero ‘yun pong ‘Sansure’ test kits na ibinigay din po sa atin–ito po ay nakapagpakita ng parehong resulta na test kits na galing sa WHO (World Health Organization) kaya ito po ay pinayagan gamitin,” noted Vergeire.
Vergeire said that test kits donated by the different countries are being validated to ascertain if these can correctly identify positive cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“Nagsasagawa po ang RITM (Research Institute for Tropical Medicine) ng parallel testing ng mga test kits natin gamit po ang protocol ng WHO.
“Makakasiguro po ang ating mga kababayan na atin pong bina-validate ang ating mga donasyon na testing kits bago natin gamitin. So nakikita natin dito kung ano ang off quality, kung ano ang mababang kalidad at hindi dapat gamitin para sa ating mga kababayan,” added Vergeire.
NOT PART OF
CHINA DONATION
The Chinese Embassy in Manila on Sunday clarified that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test kits that the DoH referred to be only 40 percent accurate were not part of the official donations made by the Chinese government to the Philippines.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy said they immediately contacted the DoH following the remarks made by Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a live press briefing on Saturday, March 28, that they discarded the test kits from China because it only yielded 40 percent accuracy.
The embassy said they were told by the DoH that two batches of 2,000 BGI PCR-type test kits and 100,000 Sansure PCR-type test kits that were donated by the Chinese government in two tranches recently “have been assessed by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to be at par with World Health Organization-provided kits.”
“Those test kits are of high quality and standards and have no accuracy problems, which are being used in Philippine test laboratories and have helped accelerate the testing process,” the Chinese Embassy noted.
It pointed out that the test kits mentioned by Undersecretary Vergeire during the briefing were “neither tested by RITM which did not receive any kit sample for lab validation nor donated by the Chinese government.”
In the same statement, the Chinese Embassy firmly rejected any irresponsible remarks and any attempt to undermine their cooperation with the Philippines.
“Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, China has continually provided assistance as needed to support the Philippines’ battle against the epidemic. At this moment of crisis, we should fight in solidarity to overcome the epidemic at the earliest date,” it added. (with a report from Roy Mabasa)