Ormoc unveils new testing facility
The pandemic is not yet over. Eventually new cases will come up especially that we have APOR
ORMOC CITY, Leyte — A new real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing laboratory opened in here yesterday, coinciding with the city’s celebration of its 73rd founding anniversary.
Mayor Richard Gomez and Leyte 4th District Representative Lucy Torres-Gomez led the unveiling of the Ormoc Molecular Testing Laboratory at the Ormoc Sugarcane Planters Association-Farmers Medical Center (OSPA-FMC), a non-profit hospital in the city.
The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing facility the third COVID-19 testing center in Eastern Visayas after the Eastern Visayas Regional COVID-19 Testing Center (EVRCTC) and Divine Word Hospital Virology Laboratory (DWHVL) which are both located in Tacloban City.
The testing laboratory opened just a day after the city had its last active case with the discharge of a COVID-19 patient from the NHA Isolation Facility.
Besides the local residents, it will also be catering to those living in the nearby provinces and help expedite the processing of COVID-19 swab samples in the region.
“The pandemic is not yet over. Eventually new cases will come up especially that we have APOR
(Authorized Persons Outside of Residence) who are coming in and out of the city that we are having difficulty to control,” Gomez stated, adding that establishing their own laboratory was prompted by the fact that swab samples from the western part of Leyte were still being sent to Cebu City for confirmatory testing.
The Energy Development Corporation (EDC), which runs the Tongonan geothermal plant in this city, donated the RT-PCR equipment worth about P25 million.
EDC president and chief operating officer Richard Tantoco said the equipment can process up to 500 samples a day on a single shift and up to 1,000 samples if two shifts a day is done.
The testing laboratory opened just a day after the city had its last active case with the discharge of a COVID-19 patient from the NHA Isolation Facility.