New York's Press Secretary told 13 Investigates the city received 25,000 kits Monday, or half of it's first order with the promise of getting the rest by week's end.

CARMEL, Ind. (WTHR) — The City of New York is missing half its order of testing kits as the Carmel company paid to make them works to catch up.

New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio is counting on Aria Diagnostics.

The Carmel company donated 50,000 COVID-19 test kits last week.

New York City then agreed to purchase 50,000 kits each week through May.

"Aria Diagnostics, Carmel, Indiana is now going to be producing test kits for New York City," announced the Mayor a week ago on MSNBC. "I'm sure New Yorkers wouldn't have thought the calvary would come from Carmel, Indiana. But it has," he said.

But 13 Investigates has learned, Aria came up short for Monday's delivery.

New York's Press Secretary, Freddi Goldstein told 13 Investigates the city received 25,000 kits Monday, or half of it's first order with the promise of getting the rest by week's end.

13 Investigates first spoke with Aria's owner Zak Khan on April 15 about donating test kits at a time when Indiana was desperate for swabs.

"Our goal is to try to get people back to work and serve our community," he told 13 Investigates.

"Were you aware that the Indiana State Department of Health is saying they don't have enough swabs?" asked 13 Investigates Reporter Sandra Chapman.

"I didn't find that out until Thursday evening," he responded. "I donated 2,000 of them on Friday morning."

Indiana's Health Commissioner and Khan both confirmed to 13 Investigates the State Department of Health was not aware Aria had testing supplies until a press release about kits to New York City was issued by the Mayor of Carmel.

Dr. Kris Box said at no time did the state refuse help.



"A lot of talk about us turning down 50,000 lab tests from Aria and I can tell you I have never turned down anything," said Dr. Box, who confirmed that her agency looked into complaints about Khan improperly reporting COVID-19 test results.

"I know they've had issues where they sent it to a lab out of state and that lab ran out of reagents so it was sent to another lab and then that lab had some issues," recalled Dr. Box.

Aria has since started reporting results to the state according to Dr. Box.

The company began testing essential workers and first responders in Carmel back in March.

The city has paid out more than $98,000 for the repeat, weekly testing of workers.

We reached out to Mayor Brainard's office about his efforts to help Aria Diagnostics. No one returned our calls from the city.

Court records show a $6.7 million dollar bankruptcy filed last May involving the Carmel Medical Office Building listing Khan as the company President.

Indiana has since secured 100,000 test swabs from another vendor.