Benitez: Team arriving to inspect Covid-19 lab
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
BY CARLA P. GOMEZ
Former Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez is hoping a COVID-19 testing laboratory at the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City will be operational this week.
“Barring any difficult requirements, I can have that testing lab up and running in not longer than two days,” Benitez, a Negros Occidental provincial government consultant, said yesterday.
He said a Department of Health, World Health Organization and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine team is arriving tomorrow to inspect the TLJPH laboratory.
Benitez earlier said that the DOH had informed them that the TB testing facility at the TLJPH is capable of handling COVID-19 tests.
“We are the only ones that have a negative pressure room that can accommodate testing of even airborne viruses,” he said.
The equipment is being calibrated and they are waiting for approval from the DOH for the laboratory to start testing COVID-19 specimens, Benitez said.
Benitez said it is sad to note that a La Castellana resident was found positive for COVID-19 Monday, seven days after he was tested.
He is calling on the Western Visayas Medical Center to hasten the release of the results because it has a big impact locally.
The DOH has just put in a new system and it will not take longer than two days for results to come out, he said.
Negros Occidental still has 68 specimens sent to Iloilo for testing that have pending results.*
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@senso for A BETTER BACOLOD
Ang isa sa akon mga handom para sa Bacolod.
Ako ang kapitan sg sini nga barko. Indi ini magkadto sa wala ukon sa tuo, kundi derecho sa direksyon sang pagbag-o sang gobyerno para sa kaayuhan sang Bacolodnon.
