South African man leaves India with fake Covid test result

THE police in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have arrested four persons on grounds of helping a South African national to leave the country’s shores with a fake negative coronavirus test report, officials said on Tuesday (14).

The South African man tested tested positive for the coronavirus when he arrived in Bengaluru, the state capital, on November 20. The authorities said the 66-year-old man is a director of a pharmaceutical company but did not release his name.

It was later confirmed that the man was diagnosed with the Omicron variant of the virus, which has fuelled a fresh concern the world over.

Health officials asked the man to observe a strict quarantine in a hotel in the city for 14 days and sent his test specimens for genomic sequencing. According to the police, the man managed to get a fake coronavirus test result during this time and left the hotel without informing the health authorities. He then boarded a flight and left for South Africa on November 27.

When the sequencing results came back on December 2 showing that the man was affected with Omicron, officials went to look for him but found him missing from the hotel.

An investigation was launched into how the man managed to depart India. The police said he received help from two employees at a laboratory after promising them high-paying jobs at the pharmaceutical company if they provided him with a fake test report, the New York Times reported.

The lab workers were arrested along with two senior employees at the company.

“Prima facie, it has been found that the South African national fled the country by getting a fake Covid-negative report. Four persons have been taken into custody, of which two are from a private laboratory and two are from a company, of which the South African national is one of the directors,” a police officer was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.d

The case of the South African man is not the first time that authorities in India have faced problems with travellers from abroad since the emergence of Omicron.

Recently, they said that they were unable to track at least 10 people who had arrived in Bengaluru from South Africa, where Omicron is widespread, as the people switched off their mobile phones. They were located later.

In June, authorities in India launched a probe after it was learnt that some private agencies that were tasked with coronavirus testing of pilgrims at a mega Hindu festival had forged at least 100,000 test results.