Home » World News » Covid-19: China to replace coronavirus test kits it exported to Spain after Spanish govt deemed them 'faulty'
 
SPEED NEWS

Covid-19: China to replace coronavirus test kits it exported to Spain after Spanish govt deemed them 'faulty'

Speed News Desk | Updated on: 30 March 2020, 13:28 IST

China will be replacing Covid-19 test kits it exported to Spain after the Spanish government regarded them overly faulty to be used to diagnose patient.

Spain’s Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare stated that test kits supplied by the Shenzhen Bioeasy were faulty and had failed to accurately diagnose people when tested at hospital.


Earlier, Salvador Illa, Spanish Health Minister announced that the country had procured $467 million supplies from China, which included 950 ventilators, 5.5 million testing kits, 11 million gloves and more than half a billion face mask.

It comes as China is seemingly attempting to fill the void of American leadership in Europe in the time of coronavirus crisis as Chinese public officials work to shift the blame of the deadly virus to other nations including the United States.

Shenzhen Bioeasy stated in a statement that the imprecise outcome may be a result of a failure to collect samples or use the kit correctly. The company stated that it had not sufficiently communicated with clients how to use the test kit.

The Spanish ministry stated it will withdraw the kits that showed incorrect results, and would exchange them with a different testing kit provided by the Chinese company.

The coronavirus has claimed more than 4,000 lives in Spain, taking over the death toll in China, and infected more than 50,000 people.

In the meantime, foreign affairs analysts say China is using its money, medical equipment and teams of doctors and nurses to match up to with the US.

This comes as the United States' allies Spain, Italy and France are turning to China for help with much needed medical supplies.

‘China creates the poison and sells the solution to it,' foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang told Fox News.

Dimitar Bechev, a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, observed: 'Never let a good crisis go to waste...

'There is no better illustration that the medical supplies and crews of doctors China has been supplying to Italy and other European countries battling COVID-19. Beijing does carry a large share of the blame for the global pandemic... but now it seeks to shape the narrative of the crisis unfolding before our eyes.'

Since early March, China and state media have been pushing the idea that the Covid-19 could have emerged from somewhere else – notable America.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) investigative report in February concluded that the virus came from a wildlife market in Wuhan.

Also Read: German minister Thomas Schaefer commits suicide after Covid-19 crisis worries

Also Read: Coronavirus: Ban on all domestic flights operations across India extended till April 14

First published: 30 March 2020, 13:27 IST