SINGAPORE: Thirty-three previously confirmed COVID-19 cases from a laboratoryhave been found to be "false positives", including a healthcare worker who worked at the Singapore Expo community care facility, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Sunday (May 10).
"MOH regularly reviews the laboratory tests and recently found that 33 cases from a laboratory were false positives, due to an apparatus calibration issue for one of its test kits," the health ministry added.
Subsequent retesting of the cases at the National Public Health Laboratory confirmed that these were negative cases, MOH said.
"There were no false negative results discovered from our review," said the ministry, adding that it has taken immediate action to rectify the situation.
The laboratory has stopped all tests and is working to resolve the "calibration issue", MOH added.
The man, who had no recent travel history to affected countries or regions, was previously confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on May 7 and warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).
MOH on Sunday also reported that two people from the public healthcare sector who worked at the Singapore Expo community care facility - Cases 18669 and 19360 - had "equivocal" results.
"All equivocal results are sent to the National Public Health Laboratory for re-testing. As a precautionary measure, we had categorised Cases 18669 and 19360 as positive while pending verification, and isolated them," MOH said.
Both were "subsequently verified to be negative upon re-testing", said the ministry.
Case 19360 is a 20-year-old male Singaporean nurse who worked at the Singapore Expo facility. He was previously confirmed to have COVID-19 on May 5 and was also warded at NCID.
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ, BEN CASSELMAN and ELLA KOEZE
The U.S. jobless rate for April is put at 14.7 percent, with 20.5 million jobs lost, figures that almost certainly understate the economic devastation.
Some 400,000 surgical gowns ordered from Turkey do not meet British safety standards, the UK government has said.
Up to half of the personal protective equipment (PPE) order was flown to the UK by the RAF last month, but has not been given to NHS workers and is now stuck in a warehouse.
It is not clear if the government will seek a refund from the suppliers.
The Department of Health said it was working "night and day to source PPE".
During the past few months as the UK has tackled the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare workers including doctors and nurses have complained of a lack of adequate kit such as gowns, masks and gloves.
PPE is essential for protecting front-line workers exposed to Covid-19, and without it workers are concerned they could catch or spread the virus.
Amid a row over the procurement of PPE in April, the government announced it had managed to source a large supply from Turkey.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said it was "reassuring" that British experts were "ensuring the best quality of equipment".
He told BBC Breakfast that the government was "working through" a list of about 10,000 UK-based firms which have offered to make PPE, and had received 250,000 gowns from Northern Ireland.
The chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health and care leaders, told the BBC that supplies were now "generally better" in hospitals but that care homes and GP surgeries still face "some difficulties".
Niall Dickson said that government needs to ensure "the rhetoric is matched by the reality on the ground" and that problems with the order from Turkey may encourage some NHS organisations to continue using their trusted local suppliers.
In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care said there were shortages of PPE around the world, not just in the UK.
"We are working night and day to source PPE internationally and domestically and brought together the NHS, industry and the armed forces to create a comprehensive PPE distribution network to deliver critical supplies to the frontline," a spokesperson said.
"All deliveries of PPE are checked to ensure the equipment meets the safety and quality standards our frontline staff need. If equipment does not meet our specifications or pass our quality assurance processes it is not distributed to the front line."