Fawad warns about faulty coronavirus testing kits

Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry on Tuesday warned the provincial governments and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) about the fake and unverified coronavirus testing kits.

In a tweet, Fawad said showing an infected person healthy would be mean threatening the lives of several others.

صوبائ حکومتوں اور NDMA کو وارننگ دینا چاہتا ہوں،کرونا وائرس کی غیر تصدیق شدہ ٹیسٹک کٹس کی بھرمار ہو رہی ہے، اگربیمارمریض کو ٹسٹ صحتمند ظاہر کر دے گا تو اس کا مطلب ہے کئ جانوں کو خطرے میں ڈالنا، جب تک DRAP پاکستان کی اپنی کٹس کی تصدیق کرتا ہے آپ امپورٹ کریں لیکن صرف تصدیق شدہ کٹس

— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) March 31, 2020

He said only the verified testing kits should be imported until the DRAP (Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan) registered the local ones.

However, the NDMA in a statement said that there was no question of bogus testing kits, as all of these were coming from China through the Chinese government.

Fawad’s comments came as there have been reports of some countries withdrawing the testing imported from China.

The first one was Spain which withdrew around 58,000 testing kits after it emerged that their accuracy rate was only 30 percent. However, the Chinese company promised to replace the consignment.

Similarly, Turkey cast aside a sample of Chinese-made coronavirus rapid testing kits after they gave inaccurate results.

“We didn’t find them viable and ordered some other testing kit models from a separate Chinese company,” a Turkish official said.

On the other hand, the Czech Republic too reported that around 80 per cent of Covid-19 rapid test kits China were found to be of inferior quality.