Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Thursday the Department of Health (DOH) is looking at COVID-19 testing laboratories that failed to submit reports on cases in the past several days.
In a press conference, Vergeire said DOH already reached out to Allegiant Regional Care Hospital in Central Visayas about their concern.
The department is now identifying another testing laboratory that did not update their results for the past days, Vergeire added.
“We are trying to coordinate now with Allegiant kung bakit hindi siya nakakapagsa these past days.Tapos meron pa isang laboratoryo na in-identify that was not able to submit a report,” she said.
(We are trying to coordinate now with Allegiant on why they failed to submit these past days. Then we have another laboratory that was not able to provide a report.)
“So titingnan nation [we will look at it],” she added.
Vergeire said some laboratories usually miss the deadline for submission of reports on coronavirus cases. She said DOH’s deadline for these reports is at 6 pm.
“Kapag lumalagpas sila doon, mag-submit sila ng alas diyes, hindi na sila papasok doon sa roster namin na sinabi namin na 42 out of 50 reported,” she said.
(If they were not able to meet the deadline, for example, they submitted at 10 pm, their data would not be included in our roster, which we said 42 out of 50 reported.)
The DOH Usec said the health department is looking into the issues behind the failure to report.
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Meanwhile, Vergeire said there was a discrepancy earlier between the reported cases in the DOH bulletin and the number of COVID-19 cases from the laboratory submissions.
She explained that DOH needed to validate the reports from the testing laboratories by checking any duplication of cases and errors in names.
Vergeire said DOH also validates if the cases are already recorded to other laboratories and logged to the Epidemiology Bureau.
Aside from the discrepancy and late submission of reports on cases, DOH also said they still have over 1,400 backlogs remaining.
“Ang 1,000 na sinabi po ni Secretary Roque kanina ay ayon sa datos na nakalagay sa ating June 27 situation report. Ang ating latest data shows that the laboratory backlog is at 1,430,” Vergeire said.