TERESA D. ELLERA
May 1, 2020

PROVINCIAL Consultant on Economic Affairs Alfredo Benitez said vital equipment for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) laboratory at Teresita Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City will be arriving Saturday, May 2.

“Our RT-PCR equipment with automated RNA extraction machine will be arriving today with Cebu Pacific flight. Soon we will have our own Covid-19 laboratory,” Benitez said.

He said, “Our goal is to have a less than 24-hour turnaround time of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.”

He added that the province can then proceed with mass testing.

Benitez has been asking the regional office of the Department of Health to hasten the release of swab results to the province after he observed the delay.

In a related development, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz also revealed Friday, May 1, that Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson would like to hasten the completion of the physical setup of the laboratory and meet the requirements of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

He said Lacson has already signed the P12 million purchase request for the equipment and its peripherals and purchase request for the 6,000 testing kits.

Diaz also said that the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) will issue a resolution to resort to emergency purchase of testing kits to meet the deadline of Lacson and Benitez to set up the Covid-19 laboratory first week of May.