Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong said Monday at least 50,000 expired RT-PCR testing kits for COVID-19 had been distributed by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to his city, the country's summer capital.
His allegation was immediately denied by the Department of Health although it explained that testing kits had a short shelf life.
In a statement, DOH said unlike medicines which had a shelf life of three to five years, the testing kits had a significantly shorter shelf life of six months from the date of manufacturing.
“Based on delivery records and documents, no expired testing kits were released to any laboratory,” the DOH said in a statement.
The RITM is under the jurisdiction of DOH.
In a Balitanghali report on Monday, Magalong said the expired RT-PCR test kits were distributed to a private testing laboratory in Bagiuo City.
He said the incident should be investigated, adding he already raised the concern to RITM and the Inter-Agency Task Force, the policy-making body of the government’s COVID-19 response, since such expired RT-PCR testing kits could also have been distributed to other local government units.
DOH said: “Test kits are fast-moving stock that have to be utilized immediately, considering that shipment and other laboratory processes already take up part of their already short shelf life.
In addition, DOH argued that machine compatibility, technical issues, low testing referral count, and availability of supplies also contribute to low consumption of the COVID-19 test kits which, in turn, increases likelihood of expiry before use.
DOH and RITM clarified that based on delivery records and documents, no expired testing kits were released to any laboratory.
Recognizing the importance of agile stock management for our testing laboratories, the COVID-19 Laboratory Network Project Management Unit was created, and a new Information Management System has been launched.
Cases projection
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 in the Philippines is expected to surge to 800,000 by the end of 2021 even if efforts against the virus are sustained, simulations conducted by experts from the University of the Philippines found.
The UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team (UP PRT) said, based on 1,000 scenarios run by their group, and fitted to the actual data as of last Friday, December 25, 2020, the cumulative number of reported cases in the country would range between 700,000 to 1 million by December 2021.
This corresponds to an average of around 19,000 deaths, excluding unreported cases, they said.
The Philippines on Sunday reported 883 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 to bring the official tally to 469,886 as of December 27, 2020.
This includes 437,678 recoveries and 9,109 deaths.
Declining trend
"Based on the projected epidemic curve, there is a big chance that the number of cases will have a continuous declining trend in 2021, assuming that testing, contact tracing, isolation, and compliance to minimum health standards in the 'new normal'," said Jomar Rabajante of the UP PRT, in a post on social media.
The range of simulation results, Rajante explained, depended on several factors such as the physical opening or closure of schools, the opening of the economy under the new normal, and the compliance of citizens to minimum health standards.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday took back his order allowing a dry run of face-to-face classes in January 2021, following reports of a new COVID-19 variant in the United Kingdom.
Rabajante said the simulation scenarios also considered the increased infectiousness of the virus, and the vaccination program that will likely start in mid-2021 with a maximum capacity of 1,500 complete vaccinations daily.
COVID updates
The Philippines logged on Monday 766 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019, bringing the total to 470,650,DOH reported.
The low number of daily cases was attributed to a number of reasons, DOH said.
“We are still continuing to see a decrease in cases over the holiday season (December 24 to January 4),” the DOH said.
“We are reminding all LGUs (local government units) to ensure that contact tracing and case investigation efforts are maintained over the holidays so that no potential cases are missed. LGUs should ensure that contact tracing and isolation of cases and close contacts are initiated immediately without waiting for test results,” DOH said.
DOH also reported 104 new recoveries, bringing the total recoveries to 438,780, which is 93.2 percent of the total cases,15 new fatalities, bringing the death toll to 9,124, which is 1.94 percent of the total cases.
'Resume operations'
DOHurged laboratories Monday to remain open amid the holiday season for the government to be able to tally an accurate number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire made the call since DOH records had shown that the number of individuals tested per day fell to 14,196 on December 25, Christmas Day.
The number of individuals tested for COVID-19 further went down to 13,314 and 11,510 on December 26 and 27, respectively.
“There was really minimal submission [on the part of the laboratories] and there were patients who preferred not going to the laboratories during Christmas time. There are also some disease reporting units, like the local government units where we get the specimen, which were closed. It affected the number of cases the past two days so we are trying to ensure and are already advising our laboratories to remain open to continue processing of specimens for COVID-19,” Vergeire said in an ANC interview.
Vergeire, however, said it was too early to tell if the temporary closure of laboratories during Christmas festivities will surely result in ballooning of COVID-19 cases.