RITM clarifies Yap remains negative for coronavirus

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MANILA – The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) on Friday clarified that ACT-CIS Rep. Eric Go Yap remains negative for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

In a statement, the RITM apologized to Yap for providing an erroneous report showing positive test results for the virus, attributing the mistake to an “encoding error.”

“We wish to publicly apologize to Cong. Eric Go Yap of ACT-CIS Party-list for forwarding a report of his Covid-19 results that displayed a clerical oversight,” the RITM said.

“His results are by no means a false positive. This isolated incident was brought about by an encoding error that was discovered late last night by the Molecular Biology Laboratory (MBL) of the Department of Health-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (DOH-RITM),” it added.

The RITM maintained its testing process is compliant with the World Health Organization (WHO) protocol, and the results remain accurate despite this incident.

It assured the public that it has reviewed all results previously forwarded and affirmed that the incident remains isolated.

It noted that another layer of verification will be added for all succeeding reports.

“Again, we profusely and sincerely apologize to Hon. Eric Go Yap for the unnecessary discomfort this incident has caused. The individual responsible for the incident was enlisted as an augmentation staff from outside the regular workforce of the laboratory. Said employee is already being dealt with administratively,” it said.

Yap accepted RITM’s apology, noting that the medical facility is facing pressure due as cases of Covid-19 continue to rise in the country.

“Inaamin ko (I admit), the past 48 hours have been very hard for me and to everyone around me. Hindi naging madali ito pero buong puso kong tinatanggap ang apology ng DOH-RITM (It’s not easy for me but I wholeheartedly accept the apology of DOH-RITM). No less than Dr. [Celia] Carlos called me up to explain what happened,” Yap said.

“Naiintindihan ko (I understand that) they are the busiest medical facility in the country right now. It’s not an excuse pero normal na nagkakaroon ng pagkakamali sa dami at sa pressure na tinatanggap ng RITM ngayon (but it’s normal to make a mistake given the pressure and number of testing requests the RITM is receiving right now),” he added.

Yap said it is just a clerical error, stressing that the testing process is still accurate.

On Wednesday, Yap revealed that he was diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Yap attended a meeting at Malacañan Palace on March 21 and the Congress’ special session for Covid-19 on March 23 before the test results came in.

The Presidential Security Group said Yap could face charges for his alleged misdeclaration on his health condition when he attended the recent meeting at Malacañang.