The government body responsible for responding to public health emergencies in England has revealed that errors in a test laboratory could have caused the death of 20 people, after giving rise to a negative result for tens of thousands of cases. COVID-19 positivity.
An investigation by the British Health Security Agency concluded that Immenza Laboratories in central England had misreported around 39,000 tests, saying they were negative while cases were positive, between 2 September and 12 October last year, according to Reuters.
HSA director and head of the investigation, Richard Glave, said: “During this investigation, we carefully examined the arrangements in place to oversee private laboratory contracts providing HIV testing services. crown in this period”.
He added: “In our view, there has been no action that the NHS Test and Trace Service could have taken differently to prevent this error in a private laboratory.”
Immentia Laboratories, central England (archive from Reuters)
One of the highest mortality rates
He added: “However, our report contains clear recommendations to reduce the likelihood of such incidents recurring.”
Interestingly, Britain has one of the highest death rates in the world from the Corona virus, as more than 177,000 people have died since the pandemic began in 2020.
