State health officials were in for a shock on Wednesday when they realised that two people — a policeman and a pregnant woman — who had “tested positive” earlier tested negative after a retest. It appears that there was confusion in the swab collection and sample testing of two policemen attached to the Begur police station and the 30-year-old pregnant woman from Bengaluru Urban.
Both the pregnant woman and the policeman were discharged from the COVID ward late on Wednesday night. “However, they will have to be isolated and observed for 14 days as after spending two days at the COVID ward, they are under high risk now,” sources said.
The pregnant woman and one of the two policemen tested positive on Monday and had been admitted to Victoria Hospital’s COVID ward. However, it has now come to light that these two persons are negative. Bengaluru Urban District Health Officer G. Srinivas told The Hindu that the samples had been retested at VRDL lab in BMCRI and IISc. lab and found to be negative. “We will again do a retest at NIV lab on Thursday,” he said.
Sources said while the pregnant woman’s sample had been tested in a private lab (Lal Path Lab), two swab samples of two different policemen were collected at Jayanagar General Hospital on May 2 and 4 and had been sent to NIMHANS for testing.
V. Ravi, head of Neuro Virology at NIMHANS, said his lab had received two samples with the same name, same sample ID, same age and same address but with different mobile numbers. “We have only tested what was sent to us. One sample that was sent on May 2 tested negative and the other sent on May 4 tested positive,” he said.
Kiran Kumar, medical superintendent of Jayanagar General Hospital, said he was not aware of two samples being collected at his hospital. “We are only a collection centre and send samples to the lab. We collected one sample as far as I know,” he said.
Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare), denied it was a goof-up. “When the samples were collected, two persons filled the ICMR Specimen Referral Form with the same name and age but with different mobile numbers. But when the police station sent the list of people tested, there were two different names and different mobile numbers. The samples have been sent for retest,” he said adding that he was not aware about the test reports of the pregnant woman.
Meanwhile, the family of the pregnant woman is aghast over the goof-up. “While we are happy that she is negative, we demand an enquiry into this by the government. She was due for delivery on Friday and we were going through hell,” her husband told The Hindu .
Following her admission in Victoria, health officials had also asked a private maternity hospital in J.P. Nagar to close down as she had visited there for check-up. “All our family members were tested and are negative. We demanded a retest as she had never gone out or interacted with anyone. Thankfully, she is negative. There should be a comprehensive probe into this,” he said.
In a statement, the Health and Family Welfare Department has said that in the list of police personnel provided to Jayanagar General Hospital, there were two with same mobile numbers. The two forms filled at Jayanagar General Hospital gives the same name with different mobile numbers. “The samples of both persons were taken. Once P-650 was shifted to a COVID-designated hospital, other person was facility isolated,” the statement said.
“The negative report of one person was received on May 5. The confusion was created due to entry of the same name twice. Hence, the repeat samples of both the persons have been taken and sent for confirmatory testing. Remedial action will been initiated once the final confirmatory reports are received from the labs,” said the statement. Disciplinary action will be initiated against the rned officials responsible for the confusion.”
