Ayon sa Department of Health (DOH) nitong Martes, Setyembre 21, nananatiling “gold standard” ang RT-PCR test sa pagde-detect ng coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
“The DOH emphasizes that RT-PCR testing remains to be the gold standard for confirming the presence of SARS-CoV-2,” sabi ng DOH.
Nagpahayag ang kagawaran matapos ang sinabi ng Pangulo na may mga reklamo ng “false positive” COVID-19 test results mula sa Philippine Red Cross (PRC).
“I also would like to ask, 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. Can you enlighten the Filipino people on this?,” sabi ng Pangulo nitong gabi ng Lunes, Setyembre 20.
Paliwanag naman ng DOH, “it is possible for test results from the same case collected at two different time points to vary.”
“[This is] potentially due to the timing of specimen collection (depending on the clinical course of infection) and other possible sources of variation in the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical phases,”dagdag ng ahensya.
“The outcome of a laboratory test result is influenced by multiple factors, affecting all the phases of testing from pre-analytic, analytic to post-analytic [from specimen collection, specimen transport, specimen evaluation, nucleic acid extraction, testing, results analysis, verification and releasing,” sabi ng ahensya.
Pagpupunto ng DOH, dapat na i-interpret ang mga tests sa pamamagitan ng “epidemiological and clinical situation of the patient.”
Analou de Vera