The government body responsible for responding to public health emergencies in England has revealed that errors in an analysis laboratory may have caused the death of 20 people after leading to a negative result for tens of thousands of positive cases of Covid-19.
An investigation by the British Health Security Agency concluded that Immenza laboratories in central England had misreported about 39,000 tests, saying they were negative while the cases were positive, between September 2 and October 12 last year, according to Reuters.
“During this investigation, we carefully examined the arrangements in place to oversee the private laboratory contracts that were providing coronavirus testing services during this period,” said HSA director Richard Gleave, who led the investigation.
He added: “In our view, there was no action the NHS Test and Trace Service could have taken differently to prevent this error in a private laboratory.”
Immenza Laboratories, central England (archive from Reuters)
One of the highest death rates
And he added: “However, our report contains clear recommendations to reduce the likelihood of such incidents recurring.”
It is noteworthy that Britain has one of the highest death rates from the Corona virus in the world, as more than 177,000 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.