MONROVIA – The Director General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), Dr. Mosoka Fallah, has admitted to mismatching of data at the COVID-19 testing lab leading to the contradiction in the COVID-19 test result of Dr. Alaric Tokpah who was earlier declared negative for the virus but was actually positive.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
Dr. Tokpah, an educator and political activist received his clearance dated July 10, 2020 from NPHIL certifying him as negative after he went for voluntary testing on Wednesday, July 8. According to him, his results weren’t given until July 10.
The July 10 COVID-19 result, a copy of which FPA has obtained states:
“I have the pleasure to present my compliments and to grant the bearer of this instrument, Alaric K. Tokpah, the right to travel from Liberia and based on his/her COVID-19 test result conducted by the National Public Health Institute of Liberia Reference Laboratory in Liberia.
Mr. Tokpah has been tested NEGATIVE with a PCR result on July 9, 2020 and is hereby fit to travel outside of Liberia and attend to personal matters.
He/She is certificated by the National Public Health Institute of Liberia on this 10th of July 2020 to return to normal duties.
Thanks for your understanding.
Best regards,
Mosoka P. Fallah, Ph.D, MPH, MA
“The Liberian government issued me mixed results, on one hand, I have official documentation that I’m COVID-19 negative but I have unofficial text messages from the Government of Liberia and health authorities that I’m COVID-19 positive.”
– Dr. Alaric Tokpah
The summersault
Dr. Tokpah had planned to travel on July 10 to the United States and was only awaiting his COVID-19 result.
As his result was delaying, he had sent Dr. Fallah an SMS inquiring his results as he was scheduled to leave the country during the evening of Friday, July 10. Dr. Fallah who showed willingness to intervene and speedily ascertain his result requested his case number which he gave as 14842.
However, while he was awaiting response from Dr. Fallah, he received the result from NPHIL that he was negative.
His happiness over this result was short lived as Dr. Fallah later replied to inform him that his result came out positive.
Dr. Fallah later informed FrontPageAfrica that there was a mismatch of the case number at the testing lab which led to Dr. Tokpah receiving a clearance that he was negative for COVID-19.
“The Liberian government issued me mixed results, on one hand, I have official documentation that I’m COVID-19 negative but I have unofficial text messages from the Government of Liberia and health authorities that I’m COVID-19 positive,” Dr. Tokpah lamented via a live Facebook broadcast.
Repeated Error
This was not the first time the laboratory had acted careless with samples.
According to Dr. Tokpah, he first went for his COVID-19 test on Monday, July 6 but upon inquiring his result on Wednesday July 8, he was informed that the technicians at the laboratory could not find his sample. This, he said, prompted him to give another sample the same Wednesday.
“When I went to the testing center on Monday, July 6, 2020, my specimen was taken and I went on a rainy day. When I inquired about the results on the 8th of July, Wednesday in the morning, I was informed that my specimen had been missing from the lab; that those who took the sample were not responsible for the evaluation of results and that they sent my specimen to a lab which could not account for my specimen,” he lamented.
No Contact for Quarantine
According to Dr. Tokpah, since he was informed that he was positive for the coronavirus, health authorities have not contacted him for possible quarantine and contact tracing.
“The health authorities of this country have not made any effort to quarantine me; the health authorities of this country have not provided me the possibility to survive between this morning and now so I have therefore decided to inform the people of Liberia, particularly the people of Gbarpolu County that the Government of Liberia has attacked democracy.
Political COVID-19 Results?
Dr. Tokpah is now warning that every statistic from Liberia must be treated with caution, especially as it relates to the COVID-19. He alleged that the Liberian government is using the fight against COVID-19 as an instrument to destroy opposition politicians.
He further alleged that the government was using the COVID-19 fight to brutalize citizens and deliberately destroy the economy. “The Liberian government is only interested in using this occasion – the plague of the world – to gain money,” he alleged.