MANILA: The Department of Health has approved the use of saliva as alternative specimen in Covid-19 tests in Philippine Red Cross laboratories, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
In a public briefing, Vergeire said the DOH allowed the PRC laboratories to conduct saliva testing after the humanitarian group presented the results its study on Wednesday.
Vergeire, however, noted that DOH will wait for the validation test results from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) before allowing saliva test in other laboratories in the country.
Earlier, Vergeire said the DOH has been coordinating with the PRC for the use of the saliva tests in detecting Covid-19 since September.
On January 12, PRC said it will conduct Covid-19 tests using saliva as specimen to over 1,000 health workers in compliance with the DOH’s requirements for the full approval of the new testing method.
According to PRC, saliva testing is a faster, easier, and cheaper alternative to the swab test as it is simpler and requires less processing.
Earlier, Senator and PRC chairman Richard Gordon clarified that the saliva test for the detection of Covid-19 will still use the same Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technology that is being used for the swab test.
