The Department of Health (DOH) said the government will lower the price cap for COVID-19 tests.
“I just can’t announce it yet kung magkano and all. It’s going to be IATF and the concerned agencies, DTI and DOH, to release the policy, pero naibaba nila ‘yung price cap nitong mga test na ito,” Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a briefing.
(I just can’t announce the price yet. It’s going to be IATF and the concerned agencies, DTI and DOH, to release the policy, but they brought down the price cap for these tests.)
In 2020, the RT-PCR COVID-19 tests must only cost P3,800 to P5,000.
Vergeire added certain local government units are offering free COVID-19 tests.
“Nagbibigay po tayo ng mga libreng testing kits sa ating local governments so that they can appropriately do their active case finding at makapagbigay po sila ng libreng serbisyo para sa ating mga kababayan,” she said.
(We gave free test kits to our local governments so that they can appropriately do their active case finding and give free service to our countrymen.)
Vergeire also recommended the retail price for antigen test kits to be at P960 to avoid “excessive” pricing.
Gov’t to lower price cap for COVID-19 tests
“Aside from that, meron pa po tayong polisiya dahil nagbibigay tayo ng mga libreng testing kits sa mga laboratoryo na kapag sila ay nagpa-test sa isang laboratory, dapat operational cost lang ang binabayaran nila dahil donated po namin ang mga kits na ‘yan,” Vergeire added.
(Aside from that, we have a policy where, because we give free test kits to laboratories, they should only charge for the operational cost since the kits were donated by the DOH.)
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that Delta is the most dominant variant in the country.
According to WHO Country Representative Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, more than 70 percent of the COVID-19 case infection in the Philippines can be attributed to such variant.
There is also community transmission or spread in Delta variant communities, according to Abeyasinghe.
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