MANILA – Malacañang has urged the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to ensure accuracy in releasing test results for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made the appeal after the RITM clarified on Friday evening that ACT-CIS party-list Representative Eric Go Yap is negative for the COVID-19, contrary to the previous result it released.
“We appeal to the RITM to be more certain of the test results before releasing them to the patients or to their doctors to avoid such unfortunate incident,” Panelo said in a statement.
RITM earlier issued a public apology to Yap as it said that the party-list representative’s COVID-19 test results are “false positive” as they assured the public that the incident was an “isolated” case.
“The isolated incident was brought about by an encoding error which was discovered late last night (Thursday),” the RITM said. “We profusely and sincerely apologize to Hon. Eric Go Yap for the unnecessary discomfort this incident has caused.”
Panelo said while the Palace was “pleased” to hear the announcement about Yap’s negative test results, he reiterated that RITM’s error has caused “alarm and anxiety” to those who have close contact with the lawmaker.
“While the erroneous reporting of Cong Yap’s COVID-19 positive has caused alarm and anxiety to those who had close physical contact with him and made them undergo self-quarantine, nevertheless such good news is welcome,” Panelo said.
Yap announced on Wednesday that he tested positive for the virus, prompting top government officials who were with him at the March 21 meeting in Malacañang in connection with the COVID-19 response to go into self-quarantine./PN
