SBMA eyeing Covid-19 mass-testing facility

After putting up two care and isolation facilities to help protect the local community from the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) now seeks to establish here a mass-testing facility that can carry out up to 2,000 tests a day.

SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said the agency will implement the mass-testing project in partnership with the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) “so that we can get a good grasp of the situation and act accordingly.”

“The testing will be open to the public, although the suspected and probable cases (previously known respectively as persons under monitoring, or PUMs, and persons under investigation, or PUIs) will be the priority,” Eisma said.

“We shall also coordinate with PhilHealth for the mechanics because they’re supposed to provide free coverage for indigent patients, but others would have to pay at cost,” she added.

Under the plan, the SBMA will put up at least two telephone booth-type swabbing centers at the Subic Bay Freeport main gate, where health workers will collect swab samples from patients.

“Once the samples are collected, these will be validated and sent to the Red Cross logistics and training center at the Naval Magazine area for testing,” Eisma said.

She added that the PRC testing facility is now being built to house testing equipment that include an automated RNA extraction machine that can run 90 samples per hour, as well as two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines that can complete up to a combined total of 2,000 tests a day.

Senator Richard Gordon, who is chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, said the PRC is using polymerase chain reaction-based test kits to ensure accuracy.

The SBMA sounded out this plan as public clamor for mass-testing resonated widely, with experts saying that it could further optimize the government’s quarantine strategy and prevent further loss of lives.

Locally, Eisma said that mass-testing would also help the government and the Freeport authority in particular, “to get a good reading of the prevalence of the outbreak with the end-view of safely lifting the ECQ in order to get the Subic businesses running again.”

“If we don’t undertake mass-testing, we’d be fighting Covid-19 blindly. We have to get a better grasp of the situation so that we can act accordingly,” Eisma added.

The SBMA has been initiating solutions to the growing health risks that the local community faced because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Before this, the Subic agency established two care and isolation facilities at the Subic Gym and the former Leciel Hotel using its own funds and some donations from private companies, civic organizations and concerned individuals.

These facilities will be used in the event that positive cases exceeded the capacity at the Baypointe Hospital in the Subic Freeport, which has admitted patients from Zambales, Olongapo City and Bataan.

As of April 18, Zambales has reported nine confirmed cases of Covid-19 with two recoveries, while Olongapo listed nine cases with one recovery, and Bataan province 80 cases with 15 recoveries. (MPD-SBMA)

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Two Covid-19 swabbing booths are being prepared for the mass-testing program of the SBMA. The booths have glass partitions to separate the health worker who will take swab samples from the patient who will stay outside the booth.