(PNA file photo)
MANILA – The closure of some testing laboratories and the help-seeking behavior of patients caused the downtrend in the number of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases nationwide during the holidays, a health official said Monday.
"One, some of the laboratories during the holidays were closed and were non-operational. Second, would be the help-seeking behavior of our clients or patients or individuals, kung saan nakakita tayo some of our laboratories ang input nila ay zero talaga, walang pumupuntang pasiyente, walang specimens na nasa-submit (where some of the laboratories have zero input, there are no patients, no specimens submitted), that's why it has affected the positive cases we've been identifying," Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media forum.
Vergeire noted the total number of laboratory submissions per day dropped to 22,000 during the holiday season from 36,000 on average.
"The whole country, we have this decrease of five percent in our daily number of positive cases, and in the National Capital Region, mayroon tayong pagbaba ng (we have a decrease of) four percent in the reported cases," she said.
Vergeire added Filipinos tend to focus on their families and delay their health checkups during the holidays.
Since all testing laboratories are back to being fully-operational starting Monday, Vergeire said normalcy and the real trend in the number of cases will happen mid-January.
"When there was a glitch in the CDRS (Covid-19 Data Repository System) the other day, we also included in our message that the CDRS is back to its original, normal functions already, the technical glitch was for a short period and it was immediately fixed so this did not affect the number so much," she said.
The Inter Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease, Vergeire added, have already served warnings to non-compliant laboratories that fail to submit their daily reports.
"We were also able to coordinate with local governments para matulungan din nila tayo para magsubmit talaga ang mga reporting units (so they can help us require the reporting units to submit). Unfortunately, up until now, we still see non-compliant facilities, and we were able to suspend one of the big laboratories last December 29 because of its continuous non-compliance to our reportorial requirements," she said.
The DOH also reminded the laboratories to submit reports as this is part of the requirements for them to sustain their license to operate.
As of Jan. 2, 2021, the DOH reported there are 154 licensed RT-PCR laboratories and 45 licensed GeneXpert laboratories nationwide. (PNA)
