President Duterte wanted the DOH to investigate reports of RT-PCR tests conducted by the Philippine Red Cross being false positives.
President Rodrigo Duterte said that the Department of Health (DOH) should look into reports of RT-PCR tests conducted by the Philippine Red Cross being false positives as his heated exchange with Senator Richard Gordon continued.
In his “Talk to the People” address aired late Monday night, President Duterte questioned the claim of the Philippine Red Cross about their testing facilities.
“Are your testing facilities and equipment really as good as you say they are? Because I have heard of many false-positive cases from your laboratories,” the President said.
According to President Duterte, there were many cases of false-positive RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests conducted by PRC laboratories.
President Duterte added that 44 out of 49 hospital personnel had tested positive in PRC-Subic but later on tested negative in another molecular laboratory.
The President also said that 187 out of 213 PSG (Presidential Security Group) personnel had tested positive in the PRC-Manila laboratory but tested negative in their confirmatory test. 13 officials from the Department of Finance (DOF) have experienced the same.
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The President acknowledged that RT-PCR tests may not be 100% accurate but cited a Harvard article that stated that most false-positive results were thought to be because of laboratory contamination or other problems on how the lab had performed the test and not the limitations of the test itself.
President Duterte then said that the Department of Health (DOH) should look into the matter because this might have been putting more Filipinos in danger.
“Because of this information, it’s accurate that maybe the DOH can investigate this matter. You could be putting more people at risk. You could be falsely adding to the total positive cases per day of this country. How sure are we now in our figures? How do you backtrack? If it is impossible, what do you intend to do?” President Duterte said.
The President lamented how there might be people who just accepted the test result they got from the Philippine Red Cross because they didn’t have money for a confirmatory test.
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