Britain’s government has launched an investigation into why a technical issue with its test and trace programme had not been identified sooner, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday.

Britain reported a jump in COVID-19 cases after a technical issue meant that more than 15,000 test results had not been transferred into computer systems on time, including for contact tracers, a response that is seen as key to control the virus.

“There was a technical issue in the process that transfers positive test results into the reporting dashboards … that was resolved and all of the cases have been fed into the contact-tracing system,” the spokesman said, adding that additional contact tracers were being used.

“An investigation is under way to determine why the issue was not identified sooner.”