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False-negatives compound Covid-19 ordeal for many in Bengaluru

Improperly collected swabs, premature testing, poor quality testing and even mutated viruses may be behind this dramatic increase in false-negative incidents
Last Updated 17 August 2021, 08:16 IST

Thousands of Covid-19 sufferers who have symptoms of the disease are testing negative on RT-PCR but go on to show trademark Covid-19 lung manifestations when subject to CT scans.

Improperly collected swabs, premature testing, poor quality testing and even mutated viruses may be behind this dramatic increase in false-negative incidents, said Dr C N Manjunath, a committee member of the Covid Task Force. “The problem is serious as nearly 10% of all Covid-19 cases fall into this category and people can be quite ill,” he added.

Among them was 58-year-old Kalavathi, a resident of Bengaluru. When she developed symptoms of Covid-19, her family expected a positive RT-PCR report. But it came back as negative. “A CT scan revealed lung congestion,” said her son Vijay.

As Kalavathi’s family soon discovered, there were ramifications to testing Covid-positive only on CT scans. For one, as the patient had not tested positive under the RT-PCR regimen, no District ID patient number was assigned to her. She was officially a non-Covid patient. The lack of a BU number meant the patient could not be admitted to a hospital under the government quota.

An indeterminate number of such sufferers are not being registered as Covid-19 patients, despite the passing of a recent circular meant to address this problem.

Dr Manjunath, who said he made the recommendation which resulted in the circular, explained that helplines must accept such patients as Covid-positives and allot a bed. “Once that is done, all the other protocols fall into place. The patient is registered on the ICMR portal as a confirmed case, treatment protocols are assigned, private hospitals have a point of reference to claim financial reimbursement from the government, etc,” he said.

Dr Thrilok Chandra, Health Commissioner, added that SOPs had been tweaked to take a syndromic approach. He said helplines have to accept symptomatic patients even if they have a negative RT-PCR test result. However, sources on the ground said this is not happening.

“The 108 and other helplines are refusing to accept them as Covid-19 cases,” explained Mohammed Ismail, a member of the civil Emergency Response Team (ERT), which is involved in offering bed booking assistance.

“As per my knowledge not one CT scan-positive case has been given a government-quota bed to date,” he added.

When Kalavathi died, her family also discovered that they had to wait for over 24 hours to cremate, as confirmed Covid-positive bodies had priority.

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(Published 13 May 2021, 19:10 IST)

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