By NewsDesk  @infectiousdiseasenews

The Philippines Department of Health (DOH) reports the COVID-19 case total is now 80,448 after reporting an additional 2,110 new cases Sunday.

Image/CDC

About tho-thirds of the new cases were reported in the Metro Manila area (1,345) and another 300 cases were reported in Cebu.

39 deaths reported today brings the country death toll to 1,932.

The DOH also reported awaiting a study on the possible use of pooled testing for COVID-19. The study is being conducted by the Philippine Society of Pathologists.

The US FDA defines sample pooling, or pooled testing as follows:

Sample pooling is an important public health tool because it allows for more people to be tested quickly using fewer testing resources. Sample pooling does this by allowing multiple people – in this case four individuals – to be tested at once. The samples collected from these four individuals are then tested in a pool or “batch” using one test, rather than running each individual sample on its own test. If the pool is positive, it means that one or more of the individuals tested in that pool may be infected, so each of the samples in that pool are tested again individually. Because the samples are pooled, it is expected that fewer tests are run overall, meaning fewer testing supplies are used and more tests can be run at the same time allowing patients to receive their results more quickly in most cases. This testing strategy is most efficient in areas with low prevalence, meaning most results are expected to be negative.

Lastly, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) reported Sunday 36 more Filipinos abroad who were infected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which brings the total tally to 9,275.