New Delhi, Jun 11 (IANS): Imagine if your COVID tests come out positive and you spend days at a government isolation centre only to learn later that your test results were inaccurate. That is a nightmare more than 20 Noida residents had to go through due to unaccredited private labs which are now being investigated.

These Noida residents had gone for COVID tests after showing flu-like symptoms to unaccredited private labs. After all of their results came out positive, they were shifted to a government isolation centre.

However, when their samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology, all were declared negative, sounding alarm bells for the authorities.

Having been exposed to COVID patients, they are now under watch.

"We have launched an investigation against certain private labs, particularly against those who don't have ICMR accreditation. We have filed an FIR against one laboratory," said Noida Chief Medical Officer Deepak Ohri.

According to Ohri, these labs have consistently shown positive results while many of them tested negative when the samples were retested at authorised NIB Hospital in Noida.

Meanwhile, all these residents who were exposed are sent home. Those facing investigation include Lifeline lab, Star Imaging lab, Modern lab among others.

Only select places in Noida -- NIMS, SSPGTI and NIB -- are among government establishments and Sharda and Jaypee Hospital among private facilities, which have been authorised to conduct tests for COVID-19 in the district.