ANAKALUSUGAN party-list Rep. Mike Defensor on Sunday pledged to build new molecular diagnostic laboratories to provide Quezon City’s 2.94 million residents with “transformative point-of-care screening services for multiple diseases, including the next pandemic virus.”

“The residents of Quezon City deserve access to world-class automated testing services for diseases, and we are determined to give it to them,” Defensor, who is running for city mayor, said.

“We intend to put up at least three molecular testing labs – one each for the Quezon City General Hospital, the Novaliches District Hospital, and the Rosario Maclang Bautista General Hospital,” Defensor said.

At present, the three hospitals run by the Quezon City government do not have their own molecular screening labs. They end up outsourcing all their specimen testing to private facilities, thus causing holdups in patient diagnosis and treatment, Defensor said.

“We cannot have delays in patient diagnosis and treatment during a public health emergency,” Defensor, Anakalusugan party-list representative in Congress, said.

The envisioned molecular testing labs would run on the “gold standard” GeneXpert platform, according to Defensor.

“They would be capable of detecting not only COVID-19 and the next pandemic virus, but also a wide range of diseases, such as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis, cervical cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, and meningitis,” Defensor said.

MALAYANG QC STEPPING UP FIGHT VS COVID-19 SURGE

Defensor and his political allies are stepping up their efforts to fight off the fresh surge of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) infections in Quezon City.

“We’ve devoted additional resources, and we’ve also deployed more people on the ground to help COVID-19 stricken families,” Defensor said.

“We are referring suspected new infections to testing centers as well as isolation facilities, and we are also providing food and medicines to affected households,” Defensor said.

Defensor also said he and his allies grouped under Malayang Quezon City are ready to cooperate and coordinate their efforts with the local government led by Mayor Joy Belmonte.

“For now, we’ve set aside our political differences so that we can concentrate in helping to contain the surge in new infections,” Defensor, Anakalusugan party-list representative in Congress, said.

Quezon City’s cumulative COVID-19 caseload has reached 218,583 as of Jan. 15, up by 38,183 cases since Jan. 4, according to the Department of Health’s (DoH) COVID-19 Tracker.