No need to physically step into a hospital to get tested—because St. Luke’s is offering swab testing using COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction-based (RT-PCR) test kits via drive-thru starting July 13.

RT-PCR tests, which use actual swabs taken from the nose or throat, determine the presence of the virus causing COVID-19 in a person. These are then sent to laboratories and take around 24 hours or more to produce results. Currently, this is considered as the gold standard for COVID-19 testing, compared to rapid antibody tests that use blood samples to test for a patient’s antibodies against the virus.

For St. Luke’s drive-thru service, asymptomatic patients may set an appointment from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at least two days before the scheduled swabbing.

Meanwhile, the drive-thru service will be open from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Quezon City branch and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Luke’s Global City branch.

To set an appointment, contact St. Luke’s Product Information Center through the following channels:

Landline: 8789-7700 local 2677 or 5104
Direct line: 8789-7277 or 8846-8830
Mobile: 0998-5822093 or 0998-5822276
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Aside from St. Luke’s, hospitals like The Medical City in Pasig and Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City also offer drive-thru testing by appointment in Metro Manila. The local government unit of Taguig also launched a barangay-based drive-thru COVID-19 testing service in April.

Header photo by CDC on Unsplash

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