Discrepancies in Covid data leave Haryana health authorities baffled

Sampling, positive cases reflected in ICMR records are higher than the state’s stats; mismatch could impact contact tracing, surveillance, planning and strategy formulation

As many as 2,091 coronavirus cases were recorded in Haryana on May 31, a number that does not go with the data of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Union ministry of health.

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The ICMR web portal, for the same day, showed two values for the total number of coronavirus cases — 2,875 and 5,529 — while the Union ministry of health showed 2,881 positive cases in the state. The ICMR and health ministry also got the sampling data from 12 government and seven private testing labs in the state.

Similarly, the total number of samples tested till June 1 stood at about 1.21 lakh as per the Haryana health department statistics. The ICMR data, however, showed that about 1.33 lakh samples were tested till June 1.

In a nutshell, the numbers — sampling as well as positive cases — reflected in the ICMR records are higher than the state data.

The glaring discrepancies in the Covid-19 data have serious repercussions in terms of isolating the infected persons, contact tracing, surveillance, infrastructure planning and strategy formulation to tackle the emerging situation.

‘PRIVATE LABS DID NOT SHARE DATA’

The data muddle has perplexed the state authorities who suspected private testing labs of suppressing the sampling data.

When asked additional chief secretary (ACS), health, Rajeev Arora said that a number of private testing labs based in Delhi but having collection centres in Gurgaon and Faridabad did not share the testing data with the state authorities. The private labs though submitted the testing data for the ICMR web portal. “If they do not share the sampling data, how will we do the contact tracing,’’ the ACS said. Officials said that while the labs dispatched the data online to ICMR, they did not share it with Haryana.

The health department, subsequently, in a communication to 18 ICMR approved private labs in the national capital asked them to mandatorily inform each Covid-19 positive case from Haryana to the civil surgeons.

“It has been brought to the notice of state health authorities that the ICMR approved Covid-19 testing private labs in Delhi were accepting samples of patients and suspects residing in Haryana without the concurrence of Haryana government. Moreover, these labs are not conveying the results to concerned district health authorities even in the case of coronavirus positive results, a serious concern in the control of Covid-19 pandemic. In many cases, incomplete and wrong addresses, incorrect contact details are mentioned which defy surveillance activities,’’ reads the communication sent to private labs.

ICMR WEB PORTAL SNAGS

Even as the data tangle remained partially sorted, the state government on Tuesday took up the data mess with the ICMR.

In a letter to the ICMR director, Haryana’s director-general health services said the state was facing issues regarding the data on the ICMR portal. “There are incomplete entries with no mandatory columns being filled. In many entries, there are wrong, missing or incomplete addresses without contact details. Some cases have a permanent address of a particular district of Haryana, details of which have been taken from Aadhaar card but the patient is not residing at that particular address. There are duplicate data entries. If one person got tested at two labs, the ICMR portal showed two different cases, as there were no unique ID being generated for such patients. There is a mismatch of data between state and ICMR web portal,’’ the letter said.

Meanwhile, during an audit of a private lab in Gurgaon, it emerged that while the ICMR data showed a total of 16,889 tests and 825 positive cases of the lab as on June 2, the lab’s own record showed 12916 tests and 635 positive cases.

While chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday claimed the government has sorted out the data mismatch and there was nothing to get alarmed, the confusion is far from being over.