One number used to register 12 random people for Covid test

A 31-year-old lawyer in the city found herself at the short end of a Covid testing mix-up after her number was used to register at least 12 unrelated people for testing.

Rithika Reddy, 31, a resident of the BBMP's East Zone, discovered the problem shortly after getting an RT-PCR test done on August 5. “Almost immediately, I started to get test results for a lot of random people through SMS,” she told DH.

From there, things went from bad to worse, she added.

Although her RT-PCR test result came back negative, two SMSs arrived on August 7 and 9, bearing the positive test reports of two people. One was a 26-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man.

"Almost immediately, I started getting bombarded with phone calls from municipal authorities who were under the impression that I was Covid-positive,” she said.

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She added that hounding calls from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) continued despite her protestations that neither does she have the disease nor does she know the two positive cases. On Wednesday, she added that test reports for two additional people had arrived via SMS.

Sources in the BBMP war room confirmed the data error but said they did not know how it could happen. They stressed that an OTP code is required for verification of the subject’s phone number before the swab can be collected for sampling.

However, several swab collectors told DH that it is possible to register a test subject without generating a new OTP.

Tests exaggerated

“There is a ‘re-test’ option in the system that can be accessed for any individual phone number. Through this method, some testing teams are exaggerating the number of tests they are doing daily. In this particular case, it is possible that other test takers were added to this one number to shield them from being contacted by the BBMP if they turned positive,” one experienced BBMP swab collector said.

The BBMP Special Commissioner (Health), D Randeep, said an investigation determined that fault was by the testing lab.

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The mistake

“All the samples had been collected by private sample collectors and tested at Strand Lab (HCG Hospital). The given number belongs to one of the persons i.e. Rithika Reddy. The mobile numbers were different for other people in RT-PCR files. The lab has made the mistake of entering results into ICMR using the same number,” the special commissioner told this newspaper.

The mix-up means that the positive cases have not been informed that they have tested positive for Covid.