Lawmaker seeks pooled testing for coronavirus

A CONGRESSMAN wants the government to pool people for coronavirus testing at work and in schools.

Iloilo Rep. and former Health Secretary Jannette L. Garin said people may be pooled into five, 10 or 20 groups for testing which is used now during blood testing.

“Pooled testing is no longer new if we want to know the prevalence of the virus in a place,” she told ABS-CBN Teleradyo on Sunday.

Under this method, swab samples of several people are placed in a single polymerase chain reaction or PCR test.

People will be assessed further if a positive result comes from a single batch. If the swab test of comes back negative, individual tests need not be performed, resulting in savings, Ms. Garin said.

The Philippine Society of Pathologists, Inc. and Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship will conduct a study on pooled testing, she said. “We won’t have a hard time ween we return to the new normal,” she said.

The research seeks to cut the PCR testing fee to as low as P300, the congresswoman said.

Ms. Garin said the country reached its target of 30,000 daily coronavirus testing a few weeks ago, but daily tests are fewer because of costs.

“Some laboratories have a capacity of as many as 5,000 daily but only 700 tests are done because it’s not affordable,” she said. — Genshen L. Espedido