Blunder left hundreds without Covid test results

Prenetics, a company providing Covid tests in Hong Kong, on Wednesday apologised for failing to send results to almost 500 people, including 25 who tested positive.

The firm said the incident involved people who returned deep throat saliva samples to outpatient clinics between February 21 and March 1.

It said an initial investigation shows that its staff made mistakes when uploading test results at a time when they were handling an increasing backlog of samples due to the fifth wave of the epidemic.

The company said 482 people did not receive text messages informing them of their test results.

It said it had reported the positive cases to the Department of Health early last month, and told the Hospital Authority last week about the incident.

Prenetics said it has followed up on the people affected and will conduct a thorough investigation.

To prevent similar incidents from happening, the company said it has improved its workflow in handling samples.