Under-reporting? Private labs in Telangana skip registrations for Covid tests

HYDERABAD:  Are private labs testing Covid- 19 samples without intimating the government, thereby leading to a scenario where there is under-reporting of cases and tests? Express has learnt that certain labs in the city are testing individuals without registering them on the official ‘Covid- 19 Monitoring System’ of the Telangana Health Department by making them sign undertaking that in case of any untoward incident they would not be held responsible.

Express has accessed one such undertaking signed by a patient at a lab in Moosapet on Sunday. “We understand that on this date due to some technical error, S-ID was not generated for Covid RTPCR sample. We herewith give full consent to the lab to go ahead and collect the sample. We understand the lab would not be able to upload this report on the Telangana Covid portal,” says the one-page undertaking.

The lab then assigns its own registration number to the patient and produces its own personal report. As per the Covid-19 Monitoring system’s lab user manual’, “In case of walk-in/samples collected by the lab is not registered, results can not be uploaded.” It is likely that a result of this several Covid-19 positive cases are not getting reflected in the daily bulletins issued by the government.