Reused nose swabs: Indonesian firm faces lawsuit over Covid-19 test ‘fraud’
- Kimia Farma, a state-owned pharmaceutical firm, is accused of washing and repacking cotton swabs that were used at a Medan airport
- Police say workers may have earned up to US$125,000 in the ruse that has potentially affected 9,000 travellers since December
A pair of Indonesian lawyers are planning to sue a state-owned pharmaceutical firm after it was discovered to have allegedly reused nasal swabs for coronavirus tests for thousands of people.
Last week, police arrested five workers at Kimia Farma, including its Medan business manager, who were accused of washing and repacking cotton swabs at the company’s main office in the city, and then sending them to Kualanamu International Airport where they were used on unsuspecting travellers.
It is mandatory for people to produce a negative Covid-19 test result before going on board a flight, and many passengers choose to have the procedure done at an airport instead of a local hospital or clinic to save time.
Kualanamu airport offered the tests in conjunction with Kimia Farma, a major pharmaceutical producer and distributor which reported an annual revenue of 9.4 trillion rupiah (US$650 million) in 2019.
Local police said that the alleged fraud came to light when an undercover police officer took a test at Kualanamu International Airport which produced a false positive result. The officer subsequently tested negative for coronavirus, the police added.
Two passengers who regularly passed through Kualanamu airport were human rights lawyers Ranto Sibarani and Kamal Pane, who travelled to Jakarta from Medan almost every week from December 2020 to February 2021 to attend hearings for one of their cases at Jakarta’s Supreme Court.
I feel that I am the victim of serious fraud and that I was violated through my nose
Sibarani said he must have taken more than 10 tests during that time, and that he suspected that something was amiss from the outset.
