KARACHI: Expressing serious concern over the quality and number of COVID-19 tests being conducted by Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS), Jamshoro, officials of the Sindh Health Department on Thursday called on the District Health Officers of Karachi. directed to take maximum advantage of five. Leading public COVID-19 testing laboratories in the city and sending samples for testing instead of taking them out of town.
The health department asked officials from Civil Hospital Karachi, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), University of Karachi and other public laboratories in Karachi to increase their COVID-19 testing capacity and conduct more tests after the LUMHS lab came to the fore. More than 25 public and private laboratories in Karachi were conducting the tests.
Serious discrepancies were detected in COVID-19 testing in the province, where it emerged that LUMHS laboratories in Hyderabad and Karachi conducted between 7,000 and 10,000 tests on a daily basis, as district health officials were sending most of the samples to LUMHS Jamshoro. Instead of sending them to five major public laboratories in the city for COVID-19 PCR tests.
Senior pathologists associated with public and private laboratories in Karachi also expressed serious doubts over 8,000 to 10,000 tests conducted by a single laboratory in a day, saying it may not even be possible for the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad or any other laboratory. Is. Lahore, Karachi or any other city in the country.
During the meeting, District Health Officers of Karachi, officers of Public Laboratories, Director General Health Sindh Dr Juman Bahoto, Director Health Karachi Dr Akram Sultan, officials of Extended Program on Immunization (EPI) Sindh and others, Sindh Secretary Health Zulfiqar Shah when asked. Why most of the COVID-19 samples were being sent to LUMHS laboratories in Jamshoro and Karachi and not to five major public laboratories including DUHS Ojha Lab, PMCD Lab of Karachi University, Indus Hospital Lab, JPMC Lab. Civil Hospital Karachi Lab, which had a combined capacity to conduct around 10,000 to 12,000 COVID-19 tests per day.
An official of the Sindh health department told The News, “The provincial health secretary directed all public laboratories in Karachi to increase their testing capacity, while asking the DHO to send more samples to these laboratories as they were able to conduct quality tests. Were."
Officials of the Sindh health department told The News that serious discrepancies were found in the quality and quantity of COVID-19 tests being conducted through District Health Officers (DHOs) and some officials of the Health Department, who were involved in procuring the tests. . Kits, consumables and logistics cost on COVID-19 tests.
“For example, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) lab is conducting around 300 to 500 tests per day, but its data is not reflected in the Covid-19 status report in Sindh,” said a health department official. Stating that there was a huge gap between the Covid-19 testing data in Sindh's daily situation report and the data provided to the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC).
The official said senior molecular scientists and pathologists raised serious objections to the quality of tests being conducted in the province as one laboratory was conducting more tests than all other laboratories, adding that even with bogus reporting by some particular laboratories, There were allegations. ,
“Some DHOs claim that one of the major public laboratories did not find a single positive case in hundreds of samples sent to that particular laboratory. But when asked to explain that lab, the lab officials said that they were not responsible for the faulty samples and could not report Covid-19 positive to people without finding the virus in the samples,” the official said.
Denying its role in procuring COVID-19 test kits, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) said their laboratories in 28 districts of Sindh were functioning and they were capable of conducting thousands of COVID-19 tests. , most of which were added. which was being done for free.
A LUMHS spokesperson also claimed that the fake release of Rs 35 crore to LUMHS has nothing to do with the university's administration.