The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) reduced its daily testing to 400 after their operation was affected by the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country.

"Because of the surge of cases, we see many patients in RITM but even our employees are either in isolation or in quarantine for suspected COVID that is why the operation in the laboratory in the hospital is also affected," Amado Tandoc, RITM laboratory chief, said during the ''Laging Handa'' virtual public briefing on Wednesday.

"So now we limit those who went to the RITM. It will now be through online appointments to prevent overcrowding and spread of the virus," he added.

Tandoc said RITM reduced its daily testing capacity to 400. '' It is daily and based on the zoning of the laboratories," he said.

"Right now the number of laboratories has increased, so our total testing capacity from 1,500 in the first two years of the pandemic. We bring it down to 400 so that we could also do other RITM activities like training, evaluation of test kits, research and others," he added. Robina Asido/DMS