Sample contamination responsible for Monday's positive airport arrivals

Health minister Constantinos Ioannou said Wednesday that the heightened concern caused by the 30 airport arrivals who tested positive on Monday led to repeat checks, with the 26 out of the 27 so far checked coming back negative for coronavirus.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Ioannou said initial investigations into the matter showed samples suffered contamination at the lab where they were being processed.

The health minister expressed sincere apologies to the affected persons for the inconvenience caused by the false results, and gave assurances that investigations are ongoing in view of taking final decisions on the matter.

The remaining three who were announced positive for the virus on Monday are expected to be re-tested on Wednesday.

The 30 cases were announced on Monday by the health minister, who said he received the information late on Sunday from the lab processing samples collected from arrivals at the Paphos airport.

17 of the cases were passengers on a flight that arrived from Mykonos on Saturday, 10 were arrivals from Amsterdam on Sunday, which three had arrived from London, again on Sunday.