4 positive patients test negative within 24 hours, Vij marks inquiry

Haryana health minister Anil Vij on Monday ordered an inquiry after four patients tested negative within 24 hours of being declared infected.

All the patients had tested positive on Saturday and Sunday as per the reports of a private lab based in Gurugram. However, results from government labs have confirmed their negative report on Monday.

The district health department received the latest reports of three family members from Shahzadpur town, who had tested positive on Sunday. They were the contacts of Panchkula doctor who had been treating a positive patient. Besides them, the department also got a second negative report of an ANM (auxiliary nurse midwife) worker who had tested positive on Saturday as per the reports of the said Gurugram private lab. She was discharged from the hospital on Monday.

Talking about the decision, Anil Vij said, “I’ve issued an enquiry after this disparity in Covid-19 reports came to my notice and have asked the additional chief secretary (health) Rajiv Arora to constitute a team to investigate this matter. I’ve also ordered not to send any sample for testing at this private lab forthwith.”

“The private lab was approved by the central government. This disparity is a serious issue as the SOP (standard operating procedure) was strictly followed by the district administration and hospital authorities. The four patients were isolated and their residential areas were declared containment zones,” Vij added.

ALL WERE ASYMPTOMATIC, SO SENT SAMPLES AGAIN: CMO

Chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Kuldeep Singh said, “Earlier, the ANM worker, who had tested positive as per the private lab’s report, was found to be asymptomatic, so we decided to send her samples again to a government lab and the tests turned out negative. To be double sure, before discharging her, we sent the samples to another government lab and she tested negative again. The same happened with the three latest cases from a family and they too were found asymptomatic. The same procedure was followed and their second reports are awaited. The same private lab had tested them positive.”

On being asked about the possible reasons of the difference, he said, “Some extra sensitive machines show the results as ‘false positive’, but I think this should not happen at such a level. I’ve been asked by the additional chief secretary to investigate this whole matter and have informed other districts about this disparity from the lab. I’ll discuss this with public health experts and microbiologists before arriving at a conclusion.”