Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has said that the ministry is probing Lancet Kenya over a series of contradictory Covid-19 test results.
Speaking in Nakuru on Thursday, Kagwe stated that even as officials from the Medical Board continue with the probe Kenyans should avoid laboratories whose results are questionable.
Lancet was on the spot this week over Covid-19 results of 17 teaching staff of St Andrew’s School Turi who tested positive and negative three days later.
“It is true that there is one lab, specifically Lancet that carried out these tests that eventually turned from positive to negative. It is also the same lab that had also tested a group of people in Nairobi that also had the same circumstance,” said Kagwe.
“The Ministry will take its measures… we have asked our board to review that particular laboratory. But what I would like to urge is that if a lab has got all these unclear results, don’t go there. Why are you going to a lab that you know has been giving information that may not be clear.”
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Nakuru county health CEC Gichuki Kariuki on Friday said that the staffers from St Andrews Turi in Molo were among the 23 positive cases reported in the county between Wednesday and Thursday, last week.
However, when the school sought a second opinion and the samples taken to the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), the 17 turned negative.
Kenyans raised concerns over the contradictory results further asking the government to explain the disparities.
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This is not the first time Lancet laboratory is issuing Covid-19 results that contradict other testing institutions.
Early this month, a section of Kenyans claimed that the private institution’s test results were not credible.
Two women received two sets of results from different labs with one (Lancet) showing they had coronavirus while repeat tests at Nairobi Hospital indicated they were negative.
Kiambu Central Member of Parliament Jude Njomo had also accused Lancet of misdiagnosing his late mother.
The MP told his colleagues in parliament that his mother was buried hurriedly at night early last month after false reports that she had contracted Covid-19.
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The MP said samples tested at Nairobi Hospital and two other tests carried out at the National Influenza Centre returned negative results contradicting Lancet’s result that his mother died of Covid-19.
“I asked myself how many Kenyans have gotten wrong results, how many other Kenyans go through quarantine because of a wrong outcome, how many labs are careless, there are many Kenyans who are voiceless and let me the voice for those who have been offended by the careless laboratories, I wrote to KMPDB to inquire what is the problem of Lancet?” The MP asked during a Committee on Health sitting On July 1.
Reacting to the MP’s false Covid-19 test claims, Lancet Group Managing Director Ahmed Khalebi said the incident of disparities was not unique adding that the facility has been audited by three government institutions.
A report tabled before the committee detailed that the varied results may have been as a result of “different technique of testing, poor specimen, late collection of specimen or if the specimen was mishandled.”
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