Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong is not contented with the explanation of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) regarding the alleged expired Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kits donated to the city and insists that the Department of Health (DOH) must conduct a thorough investigation on the matter.
The RITM administration earlier clarified that based on its delivery records and documents, it has not given expired testing kits to any laboratory.
“Ang sa akin lang, hinihingi ko baka pwede sanang imbestigahan ito ng DOH dahil hirap na hirap tayong naghahanap ng mga test kits. These are very expensive na commodity tapos bigla na lang ni-release ito sa mga private molecular lab at malapit na mag-expire. ‘Yun lang naman ang issue natin diyan (For me, I am asking the DOH to conduct a thorough investigation because it is so hard to search for test kits. These are very expensive commodity then suddenly it was released to private molecular labs and it is nearing expiration. That is our only issue there),” Mayor Magalong raised.
Magalong further pointed out that there were no problems encountered in the initial RT-PCR test kits used by the city and the La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay areas.
The expired test kits were also a different brand from the old ones used by Baguio City for its COVID-19 mass testing.
“There was just a batch, around 50,000 na mga test kits na allegedly galing sa RITM. Ibinigay sa isang private molecular lab pero lumalabas na malapit na itong mag-expire. (There was just a batch, around 50,000, of test kits allegedly from the RITM. It was given to a private molecular lab but it was nearing expiration). We refer this matter to the DOH, and Secretay (Francisco) Duque III has taken cognizance of our revelation.”
Baguio City received 50,000 test kits on October 16 and were supposed to be used by a private diagnostic center, but only 1,000 have been used after they expired on October 10, 15, and November 5. – Report from Breves Bulsao
