UP COVID-19 test kits recalled for ‘minor’ defects
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday said all the locally developed test kits for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had been recalled over “very minor” defects.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the University of the Philippines National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) initiated the recall of its test kits to correct the defects identified by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
Vergeire declined to disclose the defects, describing them as “very minor.”
“When we talked to the [UP-NIH team] the other day, they said they were in the final stages of correcting the identified deficiencies,” the DOH official said in her online briefing.The kits are set to be revalidated by the RITM next week for public use.
Manila HealthTek, maker of the locally developed kits, was set to deliver to hospitals the test kits that are capable of conducting 26,000 tests that cost P1,320 per test. Tests using the foreign-made kits cost around P8,000.
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For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
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