COVID-19: Lab Technician Tests His Own Samples, Turns Positive

HYDERABAD: The Telangana government's precautionary measures in disinfecting the ambulances did not seem to go well, as this incident proves. A lab technician from Jogulamba-Gadwal district carrying other samples to Hyderabad tested positive for coronavirus after diagnosing his own swab samples.

According to media reports, the technician may have contracted the virus when he travelled in a 108 ambulance that was apparently not disinfected after shifting a COVID-19 patient to Gandhi Hospital.

A senior health official told media that they asked the lab technician also to give his samples for a routine check along with other samples. "The next day, we got the results and he, along with nine others tested positive", he said.

The technician had collected his own swabs for testing. Since he had no symptoms, the man did not think twice before sending his own samples for testing.He even showed up for duty the next day. Basically, he was an aymptomatic case and was tested on a random basis as part of a routine exercise.

After the positive results, all his primary contacts including top medical officials and other technicians have been quarantined. But no samples were collected as none of these people showed any symptoms.

This worrying incident has raised concerns about the lapses on the part of district authorities in sanitising ambulances and providing adequate personal protection equipment (PPEs) to frontline staff.

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