Two City Hall workers isolated after positive anti-body tests

Two employees of the Iloilo City Hall were isolated and underwent confirmatory testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after testing positive in the massive rapid antibody test conducted by the city government.

According to Mayor Jerry Treñas, the two employees have been brought to the Jubilee Hall to be isolated and subjected to quarantine.

“May ara kita duha ka nagpositive sa rapd tests, ato na sila sa Jubilee Hall,” he said in a press conference on Thursday.

Swabs were also collected from the two workers and will be subjected to real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test – the gold standard for Covid-19 testing, to confirm their actual condition.

As of Thursday, the mayor said almost 1,000 employees of the Iloilo City Hall were subjected to rapid testing.

Only the employees who are working in the field such as street sweepers and those under the Iloilo City Beautification Program have yet to be tested for the rapid test.

Treñas ordered the massive rapid testing of all employees in the Iloilo City Hall over fears of local transmission similar to what happened in Bacolod wherein several employees of the city government were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

However, health experts have expressed concerns over the use of rapid antibody tests as it may yield false positive results.

In a published article of Inquirer, Dr. Issa Alejandria, president of the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (PSMID) has said that they do not recommend the mass use of both the IgM (immunoglobulin) and IgG (immunoglobulin G) antibody tests due to the fact that “two-thirds” of its results are false positives.

“This is because the kits do not look for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19, but rather the antibodies a person has developed from a current or past infection. The available rapid antibody test kits will just tell us whether you have or do not have the antibody. It does not tell you whether that antibody is high enough to be protective or to neutralize the virus,” Alejandria said.

Meanwhile, the mayor ordered the early dismissal of the employees at the Iloilo City Hall on Thursday to give way for the conduct of disinfection inside the building (ERS).