Lyme Disease Diagnosis Botched

Testing error in a Winnipeg lab falsely led to 24 Canadians to presume that they did not have Lyme disease when they in fact were suffering from the tick borne disease, health officials in Canada said.

The scientific director of the National Microbiology Laboratory said that a number of mistakes in tests led them to provide reports that the people in question tested negative for Lyme disease and said that the lab will now be upgrading its training and instituted testing for the illness.

According to Public Health Agency of Canada, the incorrect tests were due to both human and software errors during manual and automated testing. The patients were from Manitoba, Quebec and Nova Scotia regions.

Regardless of the incorrect reports, 16 patients nevertheless took treatment for the illness while there were no visible signs of the illness among two patients to warrant a treatment while another person will undergo treatment for the disease.


Source: Medindia