“We have already instructed our concerned offices to do the preparations like survey the price range of different testing methods currently on the market,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told an online briefing on Thursday, October 1, 2020.
The DOH considers the PCR test the best for determining infection with SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes the severe respiratory ailment COVID-19. But its price in public and private laboratories ranges from P1,500 to P19,000. “It has been stalled,” she said. The guidelines were supposed to have been issued on Sept. 11 but that the agency was still studying how the controversial antigen test could be used.
There are 105 PCR testing laboratories and 33 Genexpert labs in the country that have tested 3.5 million people, the DOH said.On Thursday, the DOH reported 2,415 additional coronavirus infections, raising the overall number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 314,079.