MANILA – The Philippine government is boosting its coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing efforts as it will now include individuals who are not showing flu-like symptoms.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that, pending final guidelines, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) has approved expanding the testing strategy.
“Ngayon po isasama na rin natin ang mga asymptomatic, mga manggagawa, mga frontliners gaya ng media, subject to final guidelines,” Roque said.
He explained that the move was to fully utilize the 10 million reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test kits procured by the Budget and Health departments.
Several groups have long called on the national government to provide free mass testing to Filipinos to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Roque had said before that it would be “physically impossible” to conduct mass testing for COVID-19 in the country, which has a population of almost 100 million.
The Palace spokesperson further explained that the government pools its resources for “expanded targeted testing,” which includes asymptomatic cases or people without COVID-19 symptoms./PN
