Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population has instructed that the COVID-19 Rapid Diagnostic Kit imported from China by a private contractor be tested after doubts emerged about their reliability.
For now, the ministry has stopped the use of all kits brought by individuals and private organisations from other sources until the test kits are tested.
It was the Ministry of Health itself that had signed the agreement with Nepal’s Omni
Group on 25 April to purchase 75,000 Rapid Diagnostic Kits from China worth $600,000.
The Health Ministry’s expert consultant Khem Karki said hospitals were being told not to use the test kits because they suspected that they did not meet World Health
Organization (WHO) and the government’s own standards.
“We have instructed hospitals because we are unsure of the quality after receiving information that the COVID-19 test kits imported from abroad by private companies may give wrong results,” Karki told Nepali Times.
Last week, several European countries including Spain had reported false negatives
when the kits were used for testing suspected coronavirus cases. An investigation there showed that the companies that made the kits had not even been registered in China.
“We are trying to prevent a similar situation to Spain in Nepal,” Karki said. But why is the Ministry itself is now doubting the quality of the kits brought by a company it had
contracted for their purchase?
Karki said Omni had ordered the kits even before the contract was given and had
brought some of them via the land route through Lhasa.
“The quality of some of the kits were not up to mark, and we stopped them in Tibet itself, but some got through into Nepal,” said Karki, adding that none of these kits had been distributed to government hospitals.
He claimed that the quality kits had not been distributed to any government health institution, and added that not all kits made in different countries met WHO standards.
Ramu Sapkota
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