MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday admitted that the Lung Center of the Philippines is not able to accept all patient samples as the country struggles to increase coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing.

This after a post circulated on social media claiming that the Lung Center and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine are no longer accepting swab samples.

The tweet supposedly came from a frontliner who complained that they have yet to receive results from samples sent 4 to 5 weeks ago.

“We would like to clarify that the Lung Center of the Philippines has limited its processing of specimens to Subgroups A and B, the two groups that should first be prioritized for expanded testing under current DOH guidelines,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a written statement.

Subgroups A refers to patients or health workers with severe or critical symptoms and relevant history of travel or contact. Subgroup B, meanwhile, refers to patients or health workers with mild symptoms, relevant history or travel or contact and are considered “vulnerable.” The DOH has said that among the vulnerable population are senior citizens and those with pre-existing medical conditions.

“Any scale down in operations is mitigated by interim zoning guidelines wherein test samples are distributed to other facilities such as the Philippine Genome Center, Philippine Red Cross and other private laboratories,” Vergeire added.

Zoning was previously implemented with the RITM had to partially scale down its operations as it disinfected its facilities. This meant that test samples normally received by the laboratory were diverted to other facilities.

READ: https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/20/20/40-ritm-employees-test-positive-for-covid-19

“As for delays in results of reporting, the DOH is working hard to ensure that adequate supplies and personnel are available in our laboratories to ensure the timely release of results,” Vergeire said.

The Philippines continues to struggle increasing its testing capacity although it finally reached its goal of 8,000 tests a day on Sunday.

• READ: COVID-19 testing in PH finally hits 8,000 daily, claims DOH

There are only 26 laboratories in the country accredited to run COVID-19 PCR tests so far.