The inaccurate coronavirus test kits that were used in the Philippines were not donated by the Chinese government, China’s embassy in Manila said Sunday as it warned against moves to undermine its efforts to help countries fight the pandemic.
Department of Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said some COVID-19 test kits sent by China were only “40 percent accurate,” which failed to meet World Health Organization standards.
“The test kits mentioned by the DOH official on 28 March 2020 during the press briefing were neither tested by RITM (Research Institute for Tropical Medicine) which did not receive any kit sample for lab validation nor donated by the Chinese government,” an embassy statement said.
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“The Chinese Embassy firmly rejects any irresponsible remarks and any attempts to undermine our cooperation in this regard.”
Following Vergeire’s remarks, the embassy said it sought immediate clarification from the DOH.
“According to the clarification of the DOH, the two batches of 2,000 BGI PCR-type test kits and 100,000 Sansure PCR-type test kits donated by the Chinese government have been assessed by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine(RITM) to be at par with World Health Organization-provided kits,” the embassy said.
“Those test kits are of high quality and standards and have no accuracy problems, which are being used in Philippine test laboratories and have helped accelerate the testing process.”
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Using a specimen from a COVID-19 patient, Vergeire said the DOH found inaccurate results after conducting parallel testing using WHO diagnostic kits and those from China.
She said only those that produced the same results as the kits provided by the WHO can be used.
Thousands of test kits from China also produced inaccurate results in Spain and Czech Republic.
The Chinese Embassy reminded the Philippines that since the COVID-19 outbreak, China has continually “provided assistance as needed” to support its battle against the deadly virus, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan and killed more than 25,000 across the world.
“At this moment of crisis, we should fight in solidarity to overcome the epidemic at the earliest date,” the embassy said.
