The Ministry of Health on Sunday said that 33 cases identified as COVID-19 infections were found to be false positives.
“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,” said the ministry.
These cases were subsequently retested at the National Public Health Laboratory, where it was confirmed that these were negative cases.
“MOH has taken immediate actions to rectify the situation. The laboratory has stopped all tests and is working to resolve the calibration issue,” added the MOH.
There were no false negative results discovered from the review, said the ministry.
The 33 cases that were found to be false positives are – Cases 20844, 20847, 20850, 20853, 20854, 20855, 20856, 20973, 21018, 21021, 21024, 21111, 21120, 21163, 21166, 21170, 21370, 21456, 21581, 21595, 21596, 21598, 21599, 21600, 21601, 21602, 21603, 21604, 21605, 21606, 21607, 21608 and 21609.
The MOH also said that two cases from the public healthcare sector – 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 in its press release.
Both were "subsequently verified to be negative upon re-testing".