Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has issued a notice to Hadapsar-based Noble Hospital over discrepancies in dengue testing records uploaded to govt’s disease-surveillance portal, Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP). Hospital authorities attributed the mismatch to a “clerical error”.The development comes days after PMC issued a separate notice to Ruby Hall Clinic regarding the alleged delayed reporting of a suspected dengue case involving an eight-year-old girl from Lohegaon who died on Oct 18. Civic officials have sought her medical records, laboratory reports and an explanation for the delay in reporting.The notice issued to Noble Hospital last week pertains to three patients, a 35-year-old man, a three-year-old boy and a 63-year-old woman. According to PMC, the patients underwent rapid dengue screening tests, but the diagnostic method entered on IHIP was ELISA, a laboratory test used to confirm dengue infection.Assistant health chief Dr Rajesh Dighe said the discrepancy surfaced during a review of dengue confirmations reported by the hospital. “We noticed that all the three confirmatory cases were from the same family. So, we asked the hospital to share the reports. This is when we noticed these discrepancies. The hospital was asked to explain the mismatch within 48 hours,” he said.The notice also cited a state govt order dated Sept 28, 2016, which fixed the cost of certain ELISA dengue tests at Rs 600 and clarified that rapid diagnostic kits could not be used for definitive diagnosis, with such cases to be treated as suspected dengue till confirmation.Noble Hospital said an internal review found the discrepancy stemmed from a data-entry error. Chief executive officer Dr Sanjay Pathare said, “Our review found that the patients had undergone rapid NS1 card tests, used for initial screening, while ELISA was reserved for confirmation. It was a clerical error. The entry has been corrected now.”He said patients were charged Rs 600 for ELISA testing and that the hospital had strengthened verification procedures for entries made on the surveillance portal.Health officials stressed that timely and accurate reporting on IHIP was critical for tracking infections, identifying disease clusters and initiating containment measures. Dengue has been a notifiable disease in India since 2016, making it mandatory for hospitals and private practitioners to report cases to local health authorities.
