China Sells ‘Faulty’ COVID-19 Test Kits to Spain and Czech Republic

• Spanish health authorities have announced they will return coronavirus test kits they purchased from China after they presented only 30% accuracy rate.
• The Chinese government was quick to deny the accusation and clarified that the 340,000 test kits that Spain purchased were from an unlicensed provider Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology.
• Czech Republic also found that 80% of coronavirus test kits from China presented faulty results.

While China has been bragging about its “victory” in containing the coronavirus in by sharing its expertise and donating or selling test kits across the world, the trust turned into doubts when Spain and Czech Republic complained that the COVID-19 test kits they received from the country were fake and faulty.

Spanish health authorities recently announced that they will be shipping back the first batch of coronavirus testing kits they purchased from China after the results only turned out a 30% accuracy rate.

Spain is now becoming the second country to have the most number of coronavirus infections with 72,335 confirmed cases of the virus and 5,820 deaths so far. The significant surge, according to them, may allegedly be linked with the faulty test kits that they’ve been using.

The Chinese embassy to Spain immediately denied that the faulty kits came from the 423 million euro deal that the two country-counterparts have signed for the purchase of 5.5-million test kits. The embassy stressed that the test kits that the faulty kits from an unlicensed provider named Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology.

China also clarified that the said company was never on their list of certified providers that they offered to Spain with its deal and that Shenzhen Bioeasy has no license to sell their products.

Spain had ordered 340,000 coronavirus test kits from the company.

Meanwhile, Czech Republic also complained that 80 percent of the 150,000 coronavirus testing kits they received from China brought faulty results. Czech purchased the kits for $568,000 and they arrived in Prague from Shenzhen last March 18. Authorities said 100,000 kits were paid for by the health ministry, while the rest of the 50,000 were paid for by the Czech interior ministry.

However, Czech deputy prime minister and interior minister Jan Hamacek downplayed the said discovery. He said the faulty result is due to a “possible wrong methodology,”adding that the test kits can still be used in two instances – when the virus “has been around for some time” or when someone finishes the 14-day quarantine.

“In my opinion, this is not about some scandalous revelation that it is not working,” Hamacek said.

As of posting time, Czech Republic has 2,631 confirmed cases of coronavirus with 11 fatalities.