Coimbatore: One false negative patient could spread the virus to a larger community , experts say.
Coimbatore: Since the relaxation announced by the government, Coimbatore is witnessing a steep increase in Covid positive cases. While the district administration, health department and the city corporation are waging a war to control a major outbreak here, the erroneous testing results by the labs approved for Covid testing may now bring some fresh challenges to combat.
Few days ago, a resident from Kovilmedu, heretested positive for the novel corona virus after undergoing a lab test in Microbiology lab in Vadavalli here. In a repeat test on the same day at another private lab, the 27-year-old, was declared negative for Covid.
Following complaints, the private lab where he was first tested positive was sealed by the corporation and health department for further investigation. Question again rises on the accuracy of the lab report, which declared the complainant as negative for Covid, too.
Such incidents instill fear amid the public on accuracy of results. Experts opine that varying results and delay in declaring reports are due tothe volume of mass testing that’s required in this pandemic. Especially, with the city grappling under the outbreak and the delay of results in government labs has made people throng the private labs.Surge in swab collection, results in piling up of swabs and erroneous reports, at times. Not to forget, there is also a chance for the test result to be otherwise, if the patient has no antibodies against COVID-19.
According to researchers and few journals, it is indicated that more people will get false positive results because it occurs in any situation for which the prevalence of a disease in the tested population is less and test gives important proportion of false positives.
Not only in Coimbatore, variation in test results is reported in several parts of the world, it also indicates that the presence of antibodies in patients (means he/she could have exposed to the virus in the past) could reduce the rate of false positive result.
Observing that the delay in laboratory test results attributes to wider spread ofCOVID-19, the Coimbatore Corporation Commissioner, Kumaravel Pandian assured that steps are being taken to direct the labs to process the swabs and inform the test results within 24 hours.
It's proven that widespread testing, including testing of asymptomatic people is crucial to reverse the growing infection rates. However, inaccuracy in results and delayed testing only complicates the strategy to contain the viral spread. Test results are only useful, when they areavailable in one or two days,say experts who also
warn that the risk of false negative people spreading the virus to awider community is high.
Let us assume, if a patient with symptoms had been provided with a false negative test report. Instead of being at a Covid Care Centre, the person would be roaming around freely and unknowingly become a prime cause of spreading the infection to a larger community.
Another, major cause for variation in tests is attributed to the heavy loads of swabs collected by the lab and lack of time to process them within a stipulated time. A validated protocol has been established for testing swabs, Collector K Rajamani told on Wednesday. Following repeated complaints ofvariation in reports, the Collector held a consultative meeting with the laboratories approved in the district for Covid testing and officials from health department.
The Collector reinstated that it is mandatory and utmost important that labs follow the protocol and CT values proposed by the health department.
But the reality is, not just the labs, the whole health care system as a whole wasn’t prepared for such an unprecedented ramp-up.