In an attempt to scale up the Covid-19 testing, India had imported the antibody test kits from China. The first batch had arrived last week and was distributed to various states.
New Delhi| The governemnt has now decided to withdraw all “faulty” antibody testing kits and cancelled the order to procure more kits from China. This comes after the Chinese kits had shown significant variations in the results making its accuracy questionable.
“The kits will be withdrawn, and the orders will be cancelled,” a senior official was quoted by Economic Times.
In a meeting held between Prime Minister Modi and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) chief Balram Bhargava on Monday, it was decided to withdraw the distributed kits and cancel the rest of the procurement orders.
In an attempt to scale up the Covid-19 testing, India had imported the antibody test kits from China. The first batch had arrived last week and was distributed to various states. The states reported problems with the kits complaining about its inaccuracy. Many countries have earlier complained about the test kits sent by China. Though China has maintained that there are no quality issues with the kits.
After the complaints from the states, the ICMR had sent 8 teams to these states to evaluate and analyse the test kits and results.
“The results from the filed test by ICMR experts showed that they were giving inaccurate results. A batch of Chinese-made kits brought by the ICMR will be pulled as they have been discovered to be unreliable,” an official said.
ICMR has also come under heavy fire after a legal dispute broke out between the distributor and importer of Covid-19 rapid test kits from China owing to massive profiteering and over-pricing in kits sold to ICMR.
Though the ICMR has maintained that it had ordered the kits on the request of states.
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