New Delhi: Two Chinese companies that are manufacturing the Covid-19 rapid antibody test kits have expressed shock and surprise after the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) halted surveillance testing for two days.
They said that the products had been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology.
“Wondfo received import license from India for Wondfo SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Test [Lateral Flow Method] on March 20, 2020. And the product was validated and approved by the ICMR through National Institute of Virology [NIV], Pune,” said a statement from Wondfo, one of the major global suppliers of rapid testing kits for COVID-19 viral infection.
Another Chinese firm Livzon Diagnostics Inc also issued the statement on the same line.
The explanations from both the companies clarified that the tests had to be conducted within laid down procedures and violation of the laid down procedures could disturb the test results.
They promised to cooperate with Indian authorities to investigate the reported malfunctioning and said the products met the ISO 9001 standard.
The companies said they are among the most reputed global suppliers of rapid testing kits for COVID-19 and have supplied the same to 70 countries and regions, including the United States and many other European and Latin American countries.
India had imported 6.5 lakh test kits from China last week and more such test kits were expected to reach India from China in the coming days.
On April 23, the Ministry of External Affairs said that around 20 more flights are expected to bring in supplies from China.
MEA spokesperson, Anurag Srivastava, said in a statement, “In the past two weeks, around two dozen flights departed for India from five cities in China carrying nearly 400 tonnes of medical supplies, including RT-PCR test kits, Rapid Antibody Tests, PPE kits, thermometers etc. Around 20 more flights are expected to bring supplies from China in the coming days, and this is likely to be stepped up considerably in the next few months as our procurement efforts gain momentum.”
So far, the government has placed orders for 37 lakh rapid antibody testing kits from companies in China, South Korea and Singapore.
Only about 7 lakh kits have reached India till now.
Wondfo and Livzon had bagged the highest number of orders, followed by a Maharashtra-based company Voxtur BioLimited that bagged an order of 10 lakh kits.
Indian Mission has also signed a contract on behalf of ICMR with a South Korean company to procure 5 lakh coronavirus testing kits.
The Indian government is also sourcing "six SUV-sized high speed testing machines" from Roche in the
