NEW DELHI / JAIPUR: The Centre on Tuesday asked states not to use the new rapid antibody or serological test for Covid-19 for two days amid complaints from states that these kits, procured from China, are giving false results.
Around 5.5 lakh rapid test kits had been procured by the government recently from two Chinese firms — Guangzhou Wondfo and Zhuhai Livzon — and distributed among states after the Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR) recommended extensive sampling in coronavirus hotspots.
Out of 100 Covid-19 confirmed positive patients tested in Jaipur’s SMS medical college, the rapid test could detect only five. Following this, the state government announced it will not use the kits and flagged the issue to the Centre.
“After the test samples failed, there have been questions regarding the reliability of the rapid test kit. We used it in the state as per ICMR guidelines but this experiment failed completely,” Raghu Sharma, state’s health minister said Tuesday.Rajasthan had received 40,000 kits costing Rs 600 each.
“Rapid antibody test kits were distributed to all states and one state flagged inaccuracies. We confirmed this with three other states. This is not a good sign,” said Dr R R Gangakhedkar, chief epidemiologist with the ICMR.He added the reported accuracy of the tests varied between 6% and 71%.
The ICMR said over the next two days, it will send eight teams from to states to get the kits validated before issuing further directions on this.Concerns had already been raised regarding these kits in several countries including the US and UK where the kits were rejected after being tried for testing initially.