Finally, a locally made COVID-19 test kit is ready for commercial use, the Department of Health said on July 19. It was developed by Dr. Raul Destura and his team at the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health early in February and completed field validation on April 1. The kits, however, were recalled in May to correct "very minor" defects identified by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
On July 18, senators Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros and Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan called out the Department of Health (DOH) for the long delay in approval. They pointed out in a joint statement that the Philippines has been using more expensive brands from China and Korea, which range from P4,000 to P8,000 each; when they could have been using the UP-developed test kits at P1,320.
"The country is ramping up COVID-19 testing, but locally manufactured, world-class P1,320 PCR test kits are gathering dust in laboratories due to the inaction of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III,” the three said on Saturday.
Manufactured by The Manila HealthTek Inc., the locally made GenAmplify detection kit is used for the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, which remains to be a gold standard in pathogen detection.
"After several months of collaboration, we are proud to say, GenAmplify version 2, the country's very own reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kit, is finally ready for commercial use," DOH said on Facebook. "As with other medical products and devices, performance of the kit will be regularly monitored."
The The Manila HealthTek team addressed the government's concerns with GenAmplify version 1, the health department said.
As of July 20, the DOH tallied 68,898 confirmed COVID-19 cases including 1,835 deaths and 23,072 recoveries. President Rodrigo Duterte will deliver his penultimate State of the Nation Address on July 27, where he is expected to discuss the government's response to the health and economic crises spawned by the pandemic.
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