Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Monday unveiled the city's own mobile community testing unit, the first-ever in the country, to fight the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
The modified truck would help complement the city’s strategy of tracing, isolating and testing more residents from various communities, she said.
“With this mobile testing unit, our team can further its efforts in testing more people who need to be isolated immediately,” she added.
She thanked the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Quezon City for the donation of the mobile community testing unit to be managed by the city government's Epidemiology and Surveillance under the Health Department.
Sarah Deloraya-Mateo, PCCI-QC president, said the donation is part of the business sector's corporate social responsibility to help slow down the spread of COVID-19 that has badly impacted the private sector.
“We will use this mobile testing unit to test areas with high attack rate, high active cases, and also those areas that are under special concern lockdown,” ESU head Dr. Rolly Cruz said.
Belmonte said village officials and other barangay frontliners would also be prioritized in the testing unit.
The truck would be manned by three to five people and could conduct rapid diagnostic tests and polymerase chain reaction tests.
It has a generator, a mini laboratory, negative pressure, and a self-decontamination area.
Joseph Juico, community testing project manager, expressed appreciation to the support of PCCI-QC in the city’s battle against the pandemic.
“We welcome these donations as an excellent addition to the city-wide efforts of the local government against COVID-19,” Juico said.
The city government has beefed up its strategy against COVID-19 by hiring over 300 contact tracers and health care workers and establishment of additional quarantine facilities.
