Quarantined Woman Erroneously Released After Mix-Up Of Covid-19 Tests

A woman who jetted in the country on March 24, 2020 was picked up after being released from quarantine facility a day earlier by medical officers on Wednesday over a mix-up in Coronavirus lab results.

Apparently, after she was checked into a quarantine facility in Nairobi alongside other people, COVID-19 tests were carried out and upon testing negative, they were all released on Tuesday, April 6.

However, the medics turned up and picked her back to the quarantine facility on the basis that there was a mix-up in the lab results that would cause a blunder.

Read: Repeat Tests For Persons Under Mandatory Quarantine, To Stay For Another 14 Days – MoH

While addressing the media yesterday, the Ministry of Health confirmed 7 new cases of COVID-19 bringing the total number of positive cases to 179.

Health CAS Dr Mercy Mwangangi stated that in the last 24 hours, 305 samples have been tested and one patient who was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been discharged to the general ward.

Mwangangi indicated that the majority of people who tested positive for COVID-19 were from the quarantine facilities adding that criteria had been initiated to identify the facilities that followed the guidelines and those that did not.

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“Most of our positive cases are from quarantine. We have a set down criteria to ensure that we can know which centres are following rules,” she said.

Earlier, the Health Ministry indicated that Persons under 14-day mandatory quarantine in government selected facilities were to continue their stay for an additional 14 days.

In a memo to heads of directorates and those in charge of the quarantine sites, director-general Dr Patrick Amoth said that the persons could have contracted the disease as they did not observe the set guidelines.

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According to Dr Amoth, the persons who are among the 2,050 who had traveled outside the country did not observe social distance, and the prescribed hygiene measures.

“It is therefore impossible to determine whether those who were quarantined in the facilities are actually safe to be released into the general population,” Amoth said.

Repeat testing was thus required before releasing those who had been in quarantine.