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MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) has finally accredited the Marikina Molecular Laboratory, Mayor Marcelino Teodoro announced on Thursday afternoon, April 30,
It took the DOH more than a month to accredit the Marikina City COVID-19 testing center located in Barangay Concepcion Uno as a coronavirus testing laboratory.
As of 4:30 pm of Thursday, the Marikina City Health Office was still listed as a Stage 4 laboratory by the DOH.
There are 19 Stage 5 licensed testing laboratories throughout the country, DOH report said.
The accreditation of the Marikina COVID-19 Test Center came 2 weeks after Teodoro said that he would open the facility even without the DOH’s nod, invoking the city’s local autonomy in making the decision. (READ: Marikina to open coronavirus testing center sans DOH license)
But the DOH replied that while the Marikina COVID-19 Test Center was 80-90 percent complete by mid-April, its laboratory personnel still had to undergo biosafety training. The earliest training to be conducted by Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) was on Monday, April 20.
The city government has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Manila Heath Tek, Inc., ordering 3,000 more COVID-19 test kits that have been developed by the University of the Philippines-National Institute for Health (UP-NIH) and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These kits are on top of the first 3,000 kits the city had already ordered.
As of Thursday, there are 8,488 coronavirus cases in the country, the DOH said. More than a thousand patients have recovered and 568 had died. – Rappler.com
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