MATI CITY –– The province of Davao Oriental has already begun rolling out risk-based testing for coronavirus among its target population.
As of Saturday, May 9, some 169 individuals were tested under the province’s ongoing risk-testing, of which 48 are frontline health workers while 127 are Persons Under Monitoring who went through the ‘Oplan Sundo’ from Davao City.
All frontliners and 37 others yielded negative results while the rest have yet to get their results as of Saturday.
Meanwhile, testing for COVID suspects were also done before the roll-out of the risk-based testing. Out of the 61 suspects, 44 have tested negative while the rest are still awaiting results.
The testing, according to Task Force on COVID-19 Action Officer Dr. Reden Bersaldo was to ensure that frontliners are coronavirus-free.
Around 11,000 sets of RT-PCR test kits and 16,000 sets of personal protective equipment (PPEs) for health personnel have been purchased by the province purposely for the risk-based testing. Most of these were already distributed to the Local Government Units in the municipalities and city who have also started to procure their own test kits and PPEs.
Dr. Bersaldo underscored that the province is making use of the RT-PCR or reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test kits, as it is considered as the “gold standard” for testing coronavirus and is more accurate than the rapid test kits.
