Responding to the Pandemic

When the Philippines began preparing to bring students back to classrooms and laboratories, the obstacle was testing. Not the will to test, and not the machines - UP-Philippine General Hospital already had the analysis capacity. What was missing was the kit that collects the sample.

Getting them meant getting the right ones. Nasal swabbing is invasive and hard to repeat on the schedule regular screening demands. Many kits require refrigeration, a serious constraint in the Philippine climate. And anything donated had to work with the equipment UP-PGH already owned, or it would sit unused.

APLFI worked with the University of the Philippines Alumni Association of San Francisco to solve for all three. UP alumnus and entrepreneur Yobie Benjamin was the principal donor, working with Zymo Research founder and CEO Dr. Larry Jia. Sonia Delen - an APLFI board director and UPAASF's immediate past president - coordinated across both organizations.

The result: 227,722 Zymo Research saliva collection kits, valued at US$2.85 million. Less invasive, so testing could be repeated often. Shelf-stable, so no cold chain was needed. Compatible with the hospital's existing machines, so it could use them immediately.

UP President Danilo Concepcion accepted the donation on December 10, 2021, in California. He called the kits a much-welcomed Christmas gift to the Philippines - something that could slow spread within a family, speed treatment, and give Philippine scientists better data on the pandemic. Nine tons shipped in batches beginning that January.

This is what a diaspora network can do when it organizes. Filipino alumni in San Francisco, a Filipino-American foundation, and a California laboratory reached a public hospital in Manila with something it could not easily buy for itself. Public institutions rarely lack the skill to use good equipment. What they lack is access to it.