The Department of Science and Technology is providing specimen collection booths (SCB) to boost the laboratory testing of government hospitals.
Seven SCBs were delivered for the Cordillera last week – two for the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center; two for Luis Hora Memorial General Hospital in Bauko, Mountain Province; and one unit each for the Department of Health-Cordillera, and the Conner District Hospital and Far North Luzon General Hospital and Training Center in Apayao.
DOST has allocated funds for the production and distribution of 132 SCBs nationwide to improve the capacity of testing centers and hospitals without direct contact between the patient and health workers.
The SCB is inspired by the phone booth-style coronavirus testing facilities in other Asian countries. It was crafted by Futuristic Aviation and Maritime Enterprise, Inc. (FAME), a grant awardee of the DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development.
FAME’s SCBs are compact with good ventilation, easy to mobilize, can remotely monitor the patient’s temperature, and provides a good protective barrier between the frontliner and the suspected coronavirus disease-2019 (Covid-19) patient.
DOST-Cordillera Director Nancy Bantog said the SCB was developed to reduce, if not eliminate, the exposure of medical frontliners to the Covid-19 since the region has started testing more patients.
Bantog said DOST-Cordillera, in partnership with the DOH, is also working on the deployment of the Feasibility Analysis of Syndrome Surveillance Using a Spatio-Temperal Epidemiological Modeler (Fassster) and TanodCovid system in the region.
Fassster can be used for early detection of disease by using multi-dimensional approach in modeling disease spreads.
The TanodCovid is a reporting system that can be used by local government units for Covid-19 contact tracing and creating a database of people’s illnesses and health symptoms in their locality.
These systems could provide analysis, models, and projections that will greatly help local disaster managers and decision-makers, Bantog said. – Carlito C. Dar
