BY DHEL NAZARIO
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MANILA Health Tek Lab, the company responsible for producing the locally made COVID-19 test kit, targets to produce 16,000 tests per day by May 1, from its daily production capacity of 6,000 to 8,000 tests.
It began its mass distribution of the Filipino-made testing kit yesterday.
The University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health will be the first health facility to officially use the locally-made COVID-19 test kit after the Manila Health Tek Lab Inc. delivered the GENAMPLIFY™ Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) rRT-PCR test kit to UP-NIH.
After completing the validation studies, this is the manufacturer’s first batch of delivery, under the Field Implementation funded by the Department of Science and Technology and Philippine Council for Health Research and Development. The Field Implementation covers 26,000 tests and the total project cost is P53.2 million.
Manila Health Tek Inc. Chief Executive Officer Dr. Raul Destura expressed gratitude to the DoST-PCHRD for funding the production of the test kit and its delivery to the different health facilities in the country.
“As we heal as one in fighting this global pandemic, we thank DoST for its unwavering support in the production of these test kits. We hope that we can serve more Filipinos through this endeavor and help in saving more lives against the scourge of COVID-19,” Destura said.
Destura said the GENAMPLIFY™ COVID-19 test kit has advantage against its foreign counterparts as it is packaged completely with an RNA extraction device and viral transport medium that is not found in other testing kits.
According to DoST-PCHRD, aside from the complete testing kit package, Destura guarantees provision of full technical support from their team. Destura assured that their assistance doesn’t stop in delivering the test kits and that laboratory personnel will be provided training on how to conduct the tests using the GENAMPLIFY™ COVID-19 test kit.
The agency added that his team has conducted training with the laboratory personnel of Philippine General Hospital, The Medical City Ortigas, Makati Medical Center, and University of San Agustin-Iloilo City in collaboration with Western Visayas Medical Center and PGC Iloilo.
Destura also emphasized that GENAMPLIFY™ COVID-19 test kit can be used in any RT-PCR machine as the codes used to read the sample is open source.
The complete package of the locally-made test kits inclusive of VAT costs only P1,828.40, almost four times cheaper compared to other kits in the international market whose price may exceed P8,000.
