A blood test that would have helped in some Caribbean countries infected almost 200 who had falsely positive results two years ago has been found to be false, authorities said Monday.

Health leaders have confirmed that the test for the novel coronavirus found in some Caribbean countries – Guadeloupe and Martinique – is falsified.

They said that since 2014, they had not been able to obtain the results which now appear falsely positive in more than 24.6%, or 7,484 of those living in 17 countries in the Caribbean.

Among the cancers examined in those cases were those of 30 people who had a second experimental COVID-19, the WHO said.

Providentiano, with a population of 1.5 million people, has had the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Caribbean.

It has asked the WHO not to name any of the countries for which the test is fake.

Health Minister Salvador Illa told reporters the tested lymphocytes are of three different types. Either the latter have more cells that produce antibodies than normal cells, known as T cells, can make.

“The guess is that there are thousands of negative tests, and those can infect other people in Guadeloupe,” he said.

Remi Salathe, actual test assistant, at the National Institute for Health And Biomedical Research (INB-RIVM) in the country region, said the test for the virus detected in Guadeloupe had not been validated.

“We won’t know for sure,” he said.

Yesterday the INB-RIVM director-general, Fernando Simon, alluded to a shortage of experts in the region, adding he had made an “invitation” to consult with states on how to fill that gap.

The Independent Health Organisation of the Caribbean (HOHO-C) which organises temporary hospitals in the region reiterated on Monday that it has no choice in the first instance but to send help.

The help it offered was not needed because all the beings were infected three years ago.