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DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 31 May) — The Davao Regional Medical Center (DRMC), the only tertiary government hospital in the province of Davao del Norte, has been given the go signal to perform independent testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The Department of Health (DOH)-Davao released a copy of the certification from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and a license to operate from the DOH-Health Facilities and Services Regulatory Bureau on Saturday.
The new COVID-19 testing laboratory, the second of its kind in the region, will serve as a testing center to increase the capacity to detect infected individuals in the region.
For two months since the third week of March, the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City was the lone sub-national laboratory for COVID-19 testing in Mindanao.
Other laboratories for COVID-19 testing have been set up in Zamboanga, Cotabato and Cagayan de Oro and now in Tagum City.
The DOH said this new development would ease the difficulty in sending swab specimens for COVID-19 testing in SPMC and RITM in Manila and would improve its efficiency in releasing test results.
The DRMC will use Rapid Polymerase Chain Reaction (pert Express SARS-CoV-2) testing following the World Health Organization standards. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)