Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram banned Thyrocare, a private diagnostic laboratory, from conducting COVID-19 tests after he received complaints that the tests showed many negative cases as positive, reported Hindustan Times.
The collector said that the reports were rechecked with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and it was found that the reports were negative.
“I have received many complaints regarding Thyrocare. It is a private lab which is conducting the COVID-19 diagnostic tests and it has shown many negative cases as positive. After we rechecked the reports with the National Institute of Virology (NIV), we found the reports to be negative,” said Naval Kishore Ram.
However, Chandrashekhar Mani, Vice-President (Operations) of Thyrocare has said that they have not received any notice yet. “We have not received any notice or any intimation so far so. We need to first understand what exactly is the issue and then only, can we comment on this. We will find out,” he said.
The diagnostic laboratory was served a notice by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as well for delays in submitting reports.
Meanwhile, all the 42 wards under the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have been affected with COVID-19, with all of them reporting over 100 cases. Four wards have over 1,000 cases, reported The Indian Express.
The four worst-hit wards are Tadiwala Road-Sassoon hospital (1,459 cases), Navi Peth-Parvati (1,347), Koregaon Park-Ghorpadi (1,255) and Yerawada (1,027), the report added.
On Thursday, Pune city reported single-day highest spike of 1,006 new coronavirus cases since previous evening, taking case tally to 25,174, a health official said.
Death toll reached 786 with 16 COVID-19 patients succumbing to the infection during this period.
On the other hand, 581 patients were discharged from the hospitals, he said.
