Bohol provincial fire marshall Chief Insp. Raul Bustaliño reveals that everything is back to normal at the Loay fire station after he ordered the said fire station under lockdown.
Bustaliño ordered the lockdown after one of the staff members of the Loay police station tested positive for an infection via rapid antibody test (RAT).
He said he decided to lift the lockdown order after the staff member that earlier tested positive via RAT, fortunately tested negative using the chemiluminescence enzyme immunoassay (CLIA) test.
He bared during the interview that the staff members of the Loay fire station were subjected to RAT per directive from the national office of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP).
Following the test, one (1) staff member tested positive using RAT, but tested negative for CLIA.
After the staff member who erstwhile tested positive for RAT is cleared, Bustaliño decided to lift the lockdown and Loay fire station returns to normal operation.
Bustaliño said the Loay fire station is the first BFP unit that got tested after the local government unit (LGU) of Loay agreed to provide RAT for the fire station personnel.
Due to funding difficulties, the BFP in Bohol reached out to the various LGUs for RAT provision to be used by BFP personnel, Bustaliño said.
He bared that due to the cost of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the BFP in Bohol resorted to RAT, for the meantime, and will consider PCR tests in the future if funding permits.
Meantime, Bustaliño said that the staff members of the BFP provincial fire marshal’s office were subjected to a RAT on Tuesday, and one (1) staff member tested positive using the RAT. The staff member will be subjected to CLIA test soon.
The CLIA is an antibody test, which detects the presence of antibodies, according to News Medical website.
However, the PCR test is the only test that can detect the presence of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. For this reason, the PCR test is known as the “gold standard”, according to experts.