The city government began its expanded testing for COVID-19 targeting priority individuals Wednesday, including 180 fishers who arrived last week from Mindoro and are quarantined in a government facility in Barangay Irawan.
Dr. Dean Palanca, incident commander from the City Health Office (CHO), said the fishermen who came from Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro, underwent rapid diagnostic tests (RDT).
“Maganda naman ang resulta but it is still for evaluation,” Palanca said. However, the city’s chief medical doctor did not disclose the initial result of the rapid tests.
Ten individuals were also swabbed for confirmatory test that was sent to Manila, as the viral storage fluid used for sample extraction was incompatible for the GeneXpert machine in Ospital Ng Palawan’s COVID-19 laboratory.
“The swabs, ipapadala outside. Although the GeneXpert officially ginagamit na,” Palanca added.
Palanca also said that next in line for the expanded targeted testing are the healthcare workers and other frontliners.
Palawan province, as of 3 p.m., Wednesday (May 20), has completed a total of 172 real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests since the onset of the global pandemic.
