DOH: Test kits from Beijing not inaccurate after all

MANILA, Philippines (Updated 6:11 p.m.) — Affirming claims made by the Chinese Embassy in Manila that its donated test kits meet World Health Organization (WHO) standards, the Department of Health on Sunday afternoon said that assessments by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine showed that the kits do.

In a statement time stamped noon on Sunday, the DOH said that the faulty test kits mentioned by Health Undersecretary Rosette Vergeire at a press conference on Saturday night referred to another batch of test kits that were set to be donated by another private group. 

READ: DOH sets aside inaccurate donated test kits, assures public only quality tests are used

However, the health undersecretary stressed on Sunday that she was referring to a donation from a private foundation that the department opted to decline. 

"From a preliminary review from RITM, before the donation got here, we discovered that there was one more validation this brand of test kits had to go through," she explained.

"That's why we agreed we wouldn't accept the donation that we said had a low accuracy rate."

In its statement earlier Sunday, DOH said: "The initial 2,000 BGI RT-PCR test kits and the 100,000 Sansure RT-PCR test kits have been assessed [to be] up to par." 

The Chinese Embassy also sent reporters a transcript of a text message sent to them by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.

Duque confirmed to Philstar.com that he sent the message.

"Hi! There is nothing wrong with the REAL TIME-POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION machine which is used for generating positive or negative result as the case may be!" the text messages to the embassy read. 

READ: Chinese Embassy donates COVID-19 test kits to Philippines

"Again your Test Kits BGI and SANSURE BIOTECHNOLOGY are very good and up to the standards as those which were donated by WHO and approved by our RITM. AGAIN OUR GRATITUDE AND APPRECIATION TO YOU AND THE CHINESE Government." — Franco Luna