The Department of Health (DOH) has clarified its earlier statement on the 40 percent accuracy of the donated test kits from China.
According to DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, another brand of test kits was pertained to with low accuracy, and that the initial 2,000 BGI and the 100,000 Sansure RT-PCR test kits donated by the government of China have gone through the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) assessment.
The said test kits have also gone through parallel testing according to the protocol of the World Health Organization (WHO) and passed the standards. The test kits from China, and WHO both tested the same sample and the results were similar.
The Chinese Embassy has initially denied that the inaccurate test kits came from them. The embassy stated that their test kits are of high quality and have no accuracy issues.
The DOH ensures that they are thoroughly evaluating the donated test kits.
Meanwhile, the DOH is coordinating with China on sending over medical experts or doctors to help the Philippines in battling the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).