Marikina City Mayor Marcy Teodoro said Thursday the local government of Marikina will provide free COVID-19 testing for health workers and suspected COVID-19 cases beginning on March 24.
Teodoro bared that Marikina LGU had already set up a molecular biology laboratory center for detection of COVID-19 cases.
The testing center will collect specimens that will be placed on COVID-19 testing kits which will be processed by the Php 27 million Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine acquired by the city.
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Marikina City partnered with Manila Health Tek, Inc., a spinoff of University of the Philippines- Manila, which will provide 3,000 testing kits to the city.
“Minimal lang ang expenses. Sa lahat, parang pumapatak na P1,700 at P1,800 per COVID-19 testing [ang ginastos ng city government]. Eh sa ngayon, nasa P8,000 ang cost ng per test,” Teodoro told GMA News.
The City Health Office will initially test 50 persons, according to Dr. Ramonito Villiran.
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Villiran said the initial tests will be conducted on persons under investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs).
Marikina has five cases of COVID-19 as of this posting.
