MANILA, Philippines — Health authorities on Saturday announced preparations to equip five local laboratories with the capacity to diagnose the Coronavirus Disease 2019 after three new cases were announced over the past week.

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The Department of Health confirmed that one of the newly-confirmed cases, who had no recent travel history, was a result of local transmission of the novel coronavirus.

As of Saturday, the Philippines has recorded at least six confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.

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Health Secretary Franciso Duque III said the expansion of testing centers for COVID-19 is the department’s “topmost priority.”

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, with the assistance of the World Health Organization, is in the process of enabling five subnational laboratories to conduct Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing — a laboratory-based procedure found to be most reliable for diagnosing COVID-19.

The targeted beneficiaries are the Lung Center of the Philippines and San Lazaro Hospital in Metro Manila, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu, and the Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City.

The Manila-based University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health will also be capacitated for COVID-19 diagnosis.

“Enhanced testing capacity is a prerequisite to prevention and containment, hence DOH is placing expansion of testing centers as its topmost priority,” Duque said in a Saturday release.

“DOH is determined to expand our testing capacity for COVID-19 to immediately ascertain that cases are identified and dealt with. We are studying these proposals to ensure that they are accurate and safe for the public’s use,” Duque said in a Saturday release.

The Health department on Saturday raised the alert level of the outbreak to Code Red sublevel 1, recommending the declaration of State of Public Health Emergency to the Office of the President.

“With this code red, the DOH has recommended the Office of the President for the declaration of the state of public health emergency which will facilitate...mobilization of resources, ease processes, including procurement of critical logistics and supplies and intensifying reporting and quarantine measures,” the Health secretary said.