LUCKNOW: In a man versus wild kind of a situation, a monkey snatched blood samples of suspected Covid-19 patients that were being taken to the Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College Meerut triggering panic in the area on Friday.
However, the medical college authorities have set up an inquiry into the issue and the lab technician has been asked to give an explanation as to why he was engrossed in making a video of the incident rather than informing the authorities.
As per the sources, a group of monkeys attacked a lab technician who was carrying swab samples and the kits, taken from suspected patients, in the Meerut Medical College premises.
The Medical College authorities claimed that a probe was set up under CMS Dr Dheeraj Balyan. However, the three-day-old incident surfaced only on Friday when its video started doing the rounds on social media.
Meerut Medical College and hospital is a nodal centre for the treatment of COVID patients of western UP and it also has a testing lab.
Details in video
In the video, the monkeys were seen with the swab kits of three patients and escaped before the lab technician could do anything.
The sources claimed that the monkeys were later found chewing the samples sitting on tops of trees.
The hospital authorities claimed that the samples were not throat swabs used to confirm COVID positivity in a person, but regular blood samples taken from already infected patients being treated in the medical college.
Doctors claimed that samples from the three patients were collected again.
Sources said that monkey menace was not new to Meerut medical college but the incident had given rise to the fear that monkeys could be a potential medium leading to the spread of deadly virus.
The Medical College authorities said there was no scientific study which showed the novel coronavirus could spread to monkeys from humans.
While the Medical College administration was yet to get the help from forest department in catching the simians.