SHILLONG: In a rare instance, the state government has declared that the 70-year-old man, who was admitted recently in Roberts Hospital as positive patient for COVID-19, is a false case.
Earlier on June 9, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had declared that the 70-year-old person from Umsamlem village, Ri Bhoi had tested positive for COVID-19 after his samples were collected.
He was tested positive following the RT-PCR test which has only 99 per cent accuracy.
Director of Health Services (MI), Dr Aman War on Tuesday said that the person was admitted in Roberts Hospital with acute respiratory infection and the government had carried out contact tracing in Ri Bhoi as well as in Shillong.
“We have done both the RT-PCR and rapid tests and we found that all of his contacts tested negative,” he said while adding that the patient is recovering well.
Based on the outcome, the Health department held a detailed discussion with the treating doctors and other government doctors and it was decided that he should be tested again though he is yet to complete his 14-day period as the government was suspicious about the ‘freak’ positive case when none of the contacts as well as his suspected source tested positive.
According to War, the day when he was admitted in the Hospital, he was tested for rapid test and he was found negative. Later, the first RT-PCR test outcome was positive.
However, on Sunday last, his samples were taken for RT-PCR test and the result was negative.
“We also did rapid test and there were no anti bodies and we again took samples after 24 hours and he was tested negative again,” he said.
Following this, the health department and the State Response Team on Tuesday reached a conclusion that it is a false positive case.
With this, War also announced that the number of positive cases in the state is 43 and not 44 while the number of active cases is 14.
When asked where the case faulted, War said that the machine through which they are conducting RT-PCR test is 99 per cent accurate and this particular case falls under 1 per cent error of the machine and hence the test was not accurate.
