The Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) on Sunday has warned the private laboratories to face action on not adopting the regulations and appropriate treatment methods for the safe disposal of infectious waste in the federal capital.
According to an official of the Authority, action will be taken against those laboratories in the federal capital which was not following proper procedures for disposal of waste right from handling, collecting, transporting, discarding, and marking till incineration to avoid minimal exposure to others. “Infectious waste produced at the labs and hospitals is a great threat to the public health and the environment and causes nosocomial infections if waste is not managed well,” he said.
He said that the Authority had also started a crackdown on private COVID-19 testing laboratories in the federal capital on issuing fake results of the infection tests with the support of travel agents.
He said these laboratories are unlawfully giving wrong PCR test reports of Coronavirus as per the desire of the people with the involvement of some travel agents. He said that it was also observed that some labs had issued COVID-19 reports without receiving nasal or oral swab samples or even issued negative reports to the positive patients to make their traveling easier with having wrong dealings with travel agents.
The official said we will not allow anyone to run any such illegal business in the medical field. They are playing with the health of people while deceiving health authorities.” He said that IHRA inspections teams had started surprise visits to all such labs and their collection points.
He added the Authority had suspended the services of three laboratories while further were under observation. “We have started collecting data to take action and seal all such labs with the support of the local administration as we are against this unlawful practice and our policy is zero-tolerance against such illegal activity.”
