India cancels orders for Chinese COVID-19 test kits and ICMR says no payment made for Chinese test kits supplies

India procured around five lakh rapid antibody test kits from the two Chinese firms, Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics, and they were distributed to several states reporting rising cases of the coronavirus infection.

The ICMR on Monday asked the states and union territories to stop using the rapid antibody COVID-19 testing kits procured from China due to “wide variation” in their performance even as the government said not a single rupee will be lost as payments were not made to the Chinese suppliers of the equipment.

The Delhi High Court fixed the price of the antibody test kits at Rs 400 each as against Rs 600 approved by the ICMR in an order issued last week. The ruling came on a plea by two companies, Rare Metabolics Life Sciences Pvt Ltd and Aark Pharmaceuticals, which had entered into an agreement with Matrix Labs, for distribution of the kits in India. Matrix Lab is the the importer of the kits.

Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics said they follow strict quality control of their products asserting that specified guidelines must be followed in storage of the kits as well as in their usages to get accurate results.