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Indonesian Police Bust Medical Workers Reusing Old Rapid Test Kits
Police in Indonesia’s North Sumatra Province has busted a ring of health workers from a subsidiary of state-owned Kimia Farma pharmaceutical company, after they reused old rapid test kits on travelers at the Kualanamu International Airport.
North Sumatra Regional Police spokesman Police Grand Commissioner Hadi Wahyudi said the police arrested six medical workers in the undercover sting.
“We carried out the operation after [the Regional Police’s] Special Crimes Directorate received a tip from [travelers] who reported that the test kits they were using has already been used. The Directorate then sent Police Commissioner Attendant [AKP] Jericho Levian to investigate. ”
AKP Jericho and his men posed as airline passengers at the airport and allowed the medical workers from Kimia Farma to carry out the antigen rapid tests.
“The investigators’ suspicions increased after the tests indicated them to be positive for Covid-19. Sceptical of the results, the policemen examined the antigen rapid test labs, then interrogated the Kimia Farma Diagnostic personnel,” he asserted.
“The health workers admitted to the police that they used old rapid test samples on the passengers. Their modus operandi included washing the used rapid test kits and replacing them. Kimia Farma Diagnostics’s parent company, Kimia Farma, has come clean about their employees’ actions.
The medical workers’ actions have discredited [Kimia Farma] and violated our standard operating procedures [SOP],” said Kimia Farma President-Director Adil Fadhilah Bulgini in a written statement to Kompas.com on Wednesday.