San Juan City begins COVID-19 mass testing

CALOOCAN CITY, April 28 (PIA) – Some 200 San Juan residents considered as persons under investigation (PUIs), persons under monitoring (PUMs) and frontliners were tested for corona virus disease (COVID-19) during a mass testing conducted by the city government at Barangay Corazon de Jesus covered court on Friday, April 24.

“This is the beginning of our mass testing here in the City of San Juan and we are using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for COVID-19 testing,” San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora said in facebook post.

San Juan City Government’s mass testing which is processed through a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine is in partnership with a molecular diagnostics laboratory accredited by Department of Health (DOH) and University of the Philippines – National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH).  

“We do not use rapid test kits due to its 30% to 40% accuracy that may give false positive or false negative results,” Zamora said.

The PCR testing has a 95% to 97% accuracy and recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as ‘gold standard of tests’, Zamora added.

The mayor assured the residents that it is safe to conduct the mass testing inside a covered court since the basketball court had proper ventilation.

.“PUIs and PUMs to be tested from other barangays were picked up and brought home using ambulance, while healthcare workers or swabbers were properly protected with personal protective equipment (PPEs) and face shields,” Zamora said.

Zamora said facilities used for mass testing are properly disinfected to ensure that it will not be contaminated.

The mayor said they will also launch mobile COVID-19 mass testing that will visit each barangay in the city to conduct COVID-19 in the coming days.

As of April 26, San Juan City records 214 COVID-19 confirmed cases with 35 deaths and 48 recoveries. (PIA-NCR)

source https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1040247