Pakistan: Huge discrepancies in COVID testing data reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Feb 23, 2022
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [Pakistan], February 24 : Huge discrepancies have surfaced between the Health Department and Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) regarding Covid-19 testing in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
On Monday, the Health Department claimed in its report that a total of 5,095 samples from suspected patients were tested whereas the field reports through rapid response teams (RRTs) show the number at 306.
Provincial Doctors Association said that the huge difference between the reports was a matter of deep concern and they are suspicious about the way the Covid-19 testing was being handled, reported Dawn.
In a similar incident, on Tuesday, the Health Department's report said that a total of 6,013 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours while the report prepared from the field said that only 101 tests were done during the same period.
This comes when the health workers had, earlier, called a strike in the case of collection of samples from the suspected patients in the province.
In view of such discrepancies, Provincial Doctors Association in a statement said as to how the health department could claim to conduct 6,000 tests per day when all 230 teams were on strike demanding their unpaid dues, reported the newspaper.
Notably, PDMA runs a project to look after sampling and testing matters regarding coronavirus. It does this through a private IT company Sybrid in 28 districts of the province.
It collected field reports and the reports were dispatched to the Health Department which prepared the Covid-19 tally on a daily basis.
The response team which collects samples said in its defence, "The strike has affected our sample collections and contact-tracing of positive people but we still manage to conduct 6,000 tests which also include swabs taken from people at sentinel sites through staff of the hospitals."
The Association said that there was also a problem in conducting the rapid tests as fuel was not provided to the doctors, epidemiologists, and technicians due to which they stopped work, reported the newspaper.
