Medical personnel consisting mostly of nurses, medical technologists, and other health workers have recently undergone training on swab testing and the donning and doffing of personal protective gear in preparation for the upcoming risk testing for COVID-19 among target population here.

During the training, the participants coming from the Municipal and City Health Office, Provincial Hospitals, and partners from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office learned how to don full protective gears and the proper insertion of oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs in the patient’s nose and mouth to collect respiratory secretions.

Subjecting himself to the swab test during the training’s return demonstration, Incident Commander and Provincial Task Force on COVID-19 Action Officer Dr. Reden Bersaldo stressed the need to strengthen the capacity of all healthcare workers concerned, particularly the frontliners, to ensure getting an accurate result for the upcoming risk testing. These specimens that will be collected will be sent to accredited testing centers in Davao City.

Dr. Bersaldo said that before the training, the province only has a handful of personnel who are trained for the swab testing, prompting the need to cascade the crucial training down to the Local Government Units and capacitate them to do the test themselves. “Through this, we will empower the LGU through their healthcare workers then we just distribute the test kits to them,” he said, noting that through the training the province will not be overwhelmed by the number of persons to be tested provincewide.

RISK TESTING

Dr. Bersaldo said that in the coming days, the province is set to roll out a risk testing as around 11,000 swab test kits which the province has purchased have already arrived.

He said that the risk testing will cater to COVID suspects who include those individuals with symptoms and with travel history from places with positive COVID cases. Also included in the list of individuals to be subjected to swab testing are the frontliners who are exposed to daily health hazards and other vulnerable populations like senior citizens, those with comorbidity, and women with a high-risk pregnancy. “While we have no new recorded positive case, the Provincial Task Force on COVID 19 is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the prevention of the spread of the dreaded virus,” said Dr. Bersaldo.

Dr. Bersaldo added that 50 percent of the test kits will be used for the risk testing while the remaining half will be in preparation for the next phase. “This phase is when the regional lockdown is lifted and airport operations will resume. We will use the test kits in testing those who will be coming over. Then if there will still be available swab kits, we will also use them for our Persons Under Monitoring,” he said.

While risk testing is eyed to be done after the General Community Quarantine, the Provincial Task Force said that the testing will continue even beyond the GCQ period. He said that despite the desire to do massive testing, it is logistically impossible, prompting the Provincial Task Force to strategize the utilization of the available test kits.

“Doing the swab test is very important because it is only through testing that we can say that we are indeed COVID-free,” Dr. Reden Bersaldo said. |By Neela Duallo and PIO