European countries reject Chinese-made virus test kits
Beijing reports fewer coronavirus infections, tallies asymptomatic cases; Xi calls for ‘solid line of defence’ against overseas epidemic; life in Wuhan slowly returning to normal
Beijing is stepping up its oversight of exports of coronavirus test kits after several European countries complained about the accuracy of some Chinese-made tests.
Chinese exporters of coronavirus tests must now obtain a registration certificate from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in order to be cleared by China’s customs, the NMPA said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Beijing had been encouraging Chinese firms to export test kits and other supplies to help battle the coronavirus pandemic, leading to a surge of companies offering kits to countries desperate to get a handle on the fast-moving and highly contagious disease.
Some Chinese test kit makers had been taking advantage of easier European Union regulations to get their products into the market before they were approved at home.
China, where the coronavirus outbreak first emerged in December, reported dwindling new infections on Wednesday and for the first time disclosed the number of asymptomatic cases, which could complicate how trends in the outbreak are read. Almost all of Tuesday’s 36 new cases involved arrivals from overseas, the National Health Commission said, down from 48 a day earlier, and taking total infections to 81,554.
But that figure excludes 130 new sufferers of the highly contagious disease who do not show symptoms, its statistics showed.
China has decided to devote greater screening to asymptomatic sufferers and those in contact with them.
China must “build a solid line of defence against the risks of overseas epidemic”, and allow no loopholes, President Xi Jinping said in comments published on Wednesday.
In his remarks during a visit to the eastern province of Zhejiang, Xi also urged better management of symptom-free cases.
Users of Chinese social media have expressed fear that carriers with no symptoms could be spreading the virus unknowingly, especially as authorities ease curbs on travel for hotspots in the epidemic, now that infections have subsided.
Life in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, was slowly returning to normal as the government eases a more than two-month-long lockdown. In Hubei, 93.8% of companies had resumed operation while in Wuhan 85.4% were back in business, Hubei’s National Development and Reform Commissions vice director, Xie Gaobo, said.
Xie added that the next focus would be to help companies return to full capacity. Business surveys this week showed domestic demand remains weak and export orders are plunging.
In March, Lei Chaozi, an official with the Ministry of Education, said China-made testing kits had already been supplied to 11 countries, including the UK, Italy and the Netherlands. But the accuracy of some Chinese tests marketed overseas without Chinese approval have been questioned by European health authorities.
Spain withdrew a batch of rapid tests manufactured by Chinese diagnostics firm Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology after the product was found to have low sensitivity, which means they were unable to detect infection sufficiently.
Bioeasy said in a statement last week the inaccurate readings could be because samples were not collected and processed correctly. Bioeasy said it failed to adequately communicate with clients on how to use the test.
Separately, a spokeswoman from China’s foreign ministry said last week that Slovak government officials had questioned the reliability of rapid tests purchased from China.
The preliminary conclusion from the Chinese consulate in Slovakia was that the inaccuracies were the result of medical workers using the kit incorrectly, the spokeswoman said.
The Slovak government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bioeasy’s rapid tests, as well as the tests questioned by Slovak officials, are antigen tests, a method that targets the virus’ protein to detect infection and can deliver results more quickly than the alternative nucleic acid method.
But antigen tests require higher level of virus load and therefore could fail to diagnose people correctly when the samples only contain small amount of virus, Dr Chen Guangjie, an immunology professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, told Reuters.