Audit tests carried out by Jalandhar pvt hospital: Health dept to PGIMER

JALANDHAR: Suspecting discrepancy in testing of Covid-19 samples by a private hospital in Jalandhar, the Punjab health department on Tuesday asked PGIMER to conduct an audit of the RT-PCR tests .

The state health department surveyed private labs in Jalandhar and found that the positive case ratio at the local Patel Hospital was much higher.

Special secretary, health, Isha Kalia wrote to PGIMER director Dr Jagat Ram that Patel Hospital in Jalandhar reported 26.34% positivity rate of the 205 samples put through RT-PCR test . This is high compared to other labs. In a statement , Patel Hospital said: “The information regarding the hospital having a test positivity rate of 26.34% is wrong. As per data submitted to the ICMR, the actual figure is 59 positive tests of a total of 413 tests. The actual data indicates a positivity rate of 14.28%, which is half of the claimed value and comparable with other labs. This data will be submitted to local authorities as directed so that the error can be corrected. The audit by the department of virology at PGIMER is a routine quality assurance process expected to be fulfilled by all Nabl-accredited labs accredited by the ICMR to conduct RT PCR testing.”