India To Return Chinese Rapid Test Kits at No Loss

In what can be a major setback to beleaguered China, Indian government on Monday officially announced the cancelling of its previour order of rapid anti-body test kits of Covid-19 from China. For the last few days, there have been several concerns from various state governments over the performance of the rapid anti-body test kits imported from China.

Following this, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had suspended the usage of the test kits imported from two Chinese companies. In a latest development, the ICMR on Monday has ordered for the return of all the test kits procured from the said Chinese companies – Biomedemics and Wondfo. So, the rapid test kits will now be returned to the suppliers.

Eight ICMR institutes have tested the kits in different states and validated and checked the batch of the imported kits and found unsatisfactory. ICMR evaluated the kits of Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics in filed conditions. “The results have shown wide variation in their sensitivity, despite early promise of good performance for surveillance purposes. States are advised to stop using these kits procured from these companies and return them to be sent back to the suppliers,” it said in a statement. Following this, the ICMR has ordered to cancel the order.

Since “due process is followed (not going for procurement with 100% advance amount), the GoI (Government of India) does not stand to lose a single rupee”, an official statement said from the government.

Earlier in this month, India had ordered 5 lakh rapid anti-body test kits and RNA Extraction kits and they were distributed across the states. However, the states have complained about the new test kits alleging that they had mere 5.4 percent accuracy. States including Rajasthan and West Bengal have raised the concerns. The positive samples said to have shown too much variation in the range of 6 to 71 percent, a top scientist at the ICMR confirmed earlier.