Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman and Senator Richard Gordon on Wednesday said the PRC will commence mass testing for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Quezon City next week.
Gordon said PRC will utilize two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines to identify the presence of the virus, which will be operational by Wednesday, ABS-CBN News reported.
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“If we have those tests done, we’ll be able to identify the enemy. The enemy is unseen and the objective of every government is to try to find out who’s got them,” he said.
Gordon said they will focus the mass testing in Quezon City since the city has the highest number of confirmed cases which stands at 397 as of posting.
“It’s not just for Quezon City, we plan to test as much as possible nationwide… We’re just focusing in Quezon City because it is the number one (city) where there’s an awful lot of COVID-affected folks so we want to make sure that we can assist them and make sure that the most affected can get tested right away,” the lawmaker explained.
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Each PCR machine can produce 1,500 test results per day, according to Gordon.
The medical technicians from the non-profit organization will be trained at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) over the weekend.
As of April 1, there are 2,311 cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines.
