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CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – Mayor Oscar Moreno on Thursday, June 18, warned private laboratories against conducting rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) for the coronavirus without coordinating with the City Health Office (CHO) and the Department of Health (DOH) in Northern Mindanao.
“What we would like to have is to have a smooth collaboration with everybody, including employers. I issued this warning to all private [diagnostic] laboratories, if you will continue to do that, you are on your own and we will take legal actions instantly,” Moreno said during a press briefing Thursday.
This comes after a private company allegedly commissioned two health diagnostic laboratories to conduct rapid diagnostic tests for its employees.
Moreno said that the move of the private company, though noble in nature, did not sit well with the city government as it did not coordinate with the DOH and CHO as per government regulations.
Republic Act No. 11332 or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act requires the immediate reporting of any notifiable diseases to the DOH.
Moreno said what angered him was the fact that after the test, neither the private company nor the diagnostic laboratories informed the CHO and the DOH about the results of the RDT.
The city mayor said he learned about the incident after a person who tested positive through the RDT called him and informed him personally about it, and yet neither the private company nor the clinic informed those who tested positive on what to do.
Moreno called the move of the private company as irresponsible as it caused panic among its employees when more than 5 of them tested positive for the virus through the RDT.
He instructed city epidemiologist Joselito Retuya to inform the persons who tested positive through the RDT to proceed to City Isolation Units, where they will undergo confirmatory tests using the RT-PCR. It is the policy of the DOH that all RDT reactive subjects must be confirmed by an RT-PCR test.
“We don’t want to wait for the confirmatory results of these individuals, we need to isolate them, and start contact tracing as soon as possible,” Moreno said.
Moreno also instructed City Health Officer Lorraine Nery to write to the company and the laboratories and ask them why they did not coordinate the test and why they did not inform the CHO and the DOH about the results.
“We want them to respond right away, otherwise we will initiate legal actions against these laboratories and even the company if they do not respond to our letter,” he explained.
Cagayan de Oro is currently under modified general community quarantine, the lowest form of community quarantine enforced by the government.
As of Thursday, the Philippines has 27,799 coronavirus cases, with 1,116 deaths and 7,090 recoveries. – Rappler.com
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