British health officials have said that an estimated 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don't have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory.

The UK Health Security Agency said a lab in Wolverhampton, central England, has been suspended from processing test swabs after reports of false negatives. The faulty results were among tests processed at the Immensa Health Clinic Lab between early September and this week, according to an AP report.

"Around 400,000 samples have been processed through the lab, the vast majority of which will have been negative results, but an estimated 43,000 people may have been given incorrect negative PCR test results," mostly in southwest England, the health agency said.