New Delhi, May 8 (IANS): Days after asking its officials to stop sending coronavirus test samples from the city to the National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in Noida, the Delhi government has asked the organisation to destroy all the pending samples.

Speaking to IANS, an official from the Delhi Health Department on Thursday said all the samples with the NIB, which comes under the Union Ministry of Health, have been destroyed.

"The NIB was told to throw away the samples and there are no pending reports there now," the official told IAN.

The official added that re-testing is being done for the pending samples.

"While re-testing in several cases have been done, only a few are left," the official said.

However, the office of the Delhi Health Minister did not comment on this despite repeated attempts.

On April 29, owing to 'considerable pendency' for the testing reports in NIB, the Delhi government directed that test samples no longer be sent to it.

From April 29, the Delhi government has also stopped sharing the data of pending samples.

The daily Health Bulletin of the Delhi government till April 28 was sharing the status of the pending reports.

The April 28 report said out of the total 43,370 samples collected, at least 3,295 reports were pending.

The April 29 Health Bulletin said a total of 47,225 samples were collected out of which 3,439 samples were positive till date while 39,920 reports were negative. There was no mention of pending reports.

The April 30 reports did not mention anything on sample collection from the city. Similar format was followed in May 1 and 2 reports. From May 3, the government started showing the 'cumulative tests done till date', which was 60,246 on May 3.

Till May 6 evening, a total 71,934 tests were conducted in the city, the official data said.

In the order issued on April 29 about the NIB, the Delhi government said there is a considerable pendency for the testing reports in the NIB, which is hindering the effective containment of the disease.

"The samples shall be distributed among the other government and private labs so as to ensure that the results are received within a day of submission of the sample to the respective lab," the order said.

In the past one week, Delhi has witnessed a huge jump in the number of cases.

While on May 1, the total coronavirus cases in the city were 3,738, as of May 6, the tally jumped to 5,532 -- up by about 1,800.

The government has also stopped sharing from where the new cases are coming -- which was prominently mentioned in the Health reports till mid-April when Markaz was the highest contributor in the numbers.