DOH leans on Covid-19 labs for faster results, fresher, clean data
THE Department of Health (DOH) has ordered licensed laboratories to speed up the submission of test results to ensure a more precise collation, validation and reporting of Covid-19 data as it needs to address the current backlog of 1,168 test results.
In a virtual media forum with health reporters, Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the DOH met with the laboratory officials on Monday and gave them until Thursday to submit their complete line list. She said that she expects them to comply immediately.
Vergeire, meanwhile, revealed during the DOH Beat Covid-19 televised press conference that out of 42 operational licensed laboratories, 38 have already submitted their line lists. Each line list contains all test results conducted since the beginning of a laboratory’s operation up to the present.
The government needs these line lists to provide accurate and timely information to policymakers as well as the public who have endured the hardships brought on by this pandemic.
Once the remaining laboratories submit their complete line lists, the DOH will no longer report late cases.
Likewise, as of June 1, 2020, there are 38 out of 42 operational licensed laboratories that have submitted their daily accomplishment reports.
While nearing its goal to wipe out previous backlogs, the DOH said that additional backlogs were reported after the laboratory at the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) encountered a problem with its exhaust system.
Over the weekend, a backlog of 505 cases was recorded in WVMC, 353 from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and a “few” from other labs.
Vergeire reiterated that problems encountered in laboratories, like a shutdown in operation and erratic supplies, are just some of the factors causing the backlogs.
“You have to remember that when you do the testing, you need to swab, then you need a transport medium to preserve the specimen. In the lab, you have to extract the virus. Those types of processes have different needs. This is where we encounter the challenges in supplies,” Vergeire explained in a mix of English and Filipino.
However, with the help of the private sector, the DOH is now able to stabilize the supplies, and, she added, “hopefully this will continue.”
Vergeire expressed confidence about being able “to ramp up the capacity already.” There are now 49 accredited Covid-19 testing laboratories, 38 licensed laboratories equipped to perform RT-PCR tests, and 11 laboratories licensed to use Genexpert cartridges.
Work in progress
VERGEIRE was joined by public health epidemiologist Dr. Troy Gepte at the virtual media forum. They said that as more tests are conducted daily, Covid-19 laboratories continue to be swamped with more samples to process.
While the DOH has also been conducting a mass hiring program which includes data encoders, testing laboratories have also been adapting and improving their ability to submit test results to the department so that timely and accurate data may be released to the public.
“It is difficult to clean the data. We are doing every means possible. It’s a work in progress with the labs to report properly the data .... As much as possible, we would like to have the most recent data,” said Gepte in a mix of English and Filipino, while explaining the advantages of the recent update on the nomenclature of cases to “fresh” and “late” distinctions.
“But it is not easy to get such information,” he added.
Much of the testing is still subject to a manual verification process and paper-based case information forms are still widely used for the advantages they have in parts of the country that do not have fully developed digital infrastructure.
Vergeire said this makes case validation all the more critical to ensure that the publicly available data is accurate.
She explained that the DOH can only start the validation process once the laboratories have submitted test results to them, but this puts a strain on the testing system. Fortunately, there are more laboratories being accredited, with 49 currently licensed and 130 with pending applications.
“When all our laboratories submit consistently their daily reports, and they use the COVIDKAYA application, only then can we do close to real-time informationsharing between laboratories and the DOH,” she added.
Both Vergeire and Gepte stressed that this is why it is important to separately understand the fresh and late cases, because separately examining how the trend of the fresh cases progresses over time will provide a more accurate view of how the Covid-19 situation is evolving as the country adjusts to the general community quarantine.