Director of Health Services (MOH)
Gambia’s Director of Health Services, Dr. Mustapha Bittaye has denied his ministry issuing negative test results to higher profile patients who tested positive for Coronavirus.
His comments is a response to a report that two cabinet ministers tested positive for the virus, but they were issued negative test results to travel abroad for official mission.
“The rumors are false. There are no persons who were given negative results whiles they are positive,” Bittaye said.
The Director explained the testing procedure.
“Before official results were released, there was need to retest a whole batch of samples to confirm the results due to technical issues mainly arising from the manual entry, after there was network issues and the electronic surveillance mechanism was not working. This has been resolved since the internet came on and backup mechanism are now put in place,” he explained.
He also denied mentioning the names of anyone associated with the rumour.
“I have never mentioned any name,” he concluded.