Oca lauds private sector's assistance to boost testing capacity

Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno on Friday has lauded the city’s private sector for their commitment and initiatives in augmenting the testing capacity of both the Department of Health regional office (DOH-10) and the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) for handling suspected COVID-19 cases in the city and northern Mindanao.

“Gama Foods Corp. (poultry firm based in Barangay Tablon) is supposed to donate an RT-PCR machine to the DOH-10 but the DOH-10 already borrowed two of the city’s RT-PCR machines to augment their Xpert Xpress machine,” said Moreno adding that instead the machine they will acquire will be placed at the NMMC lab which already operated their Xpert Xpress machine and will receive an additional RT-PCR machine from City Hall.

Mayor Moreno also confirmed that he received a letter from Maria Reyna Hospital-Xavier University detailing their plans to set up a testing facility in partnership with Unilab.

“I hope they will consult both the City Health Office (CHO) and the DOH in their testing facility project. I am inviting those willing to help if possible to acquire testing equipment,” said Moreno.

The NMMC lab can accommodate five more testing machines and if the need arises, City Hall may acquire an additional unit (for this purpose), according to Moreno.

In making the call for increased testing capacity, Mayor Moreno said the installation of RT-PCR machines by either the city or the private sector and the labs that will house this equipment can service not only cases in Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon provinces but also the provinces of Agusan, Lanao, and Surigao.
“Increased testing capacity by the city will also complement the CHO’s ongoing expanded, intensified contact tracing,” Mayor Moreno said.

Meanwhile, CHO resident epidemiologist Dr. Teodulfo Joselito Retuya said that the CHO already covered 114,000 households in the city and will provide a more complete health profile and database of Cagayan de Oro City that will allow the city to immediately identify and quarantine suspected COVID-19 cases and the persons who had contact with them.

NMMC spokesman Dr. Bernard Julius Rocha agreed as he lauded the CHO’s contact tracing efforts which forms part of the national government’s three-pronged plan to handle COVID-19 cases. (Stephen Capillas of CIO)