Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Jul 20, 2025

Spanish capital ditches ‘unreliable’ Chinese coronavirus test kits

Spanish capital ditches ‘unreliable’ Chinese coronavirus test kits

Madrid city stops using the kits and the national health ministry asks for them to be replaced after tests suggest they only have a 30 per cent accuracy level. Spanish government is reported to have ordered 340,000 of the kits, which the Shenzhen-based manufacturer said had an 80 per cent strike rate

Spain’s capital has stopped using a rapid Covid-19 test kit made by a Chinese company after research suggested it was not accurate enough.

Doubts over the kits’ reliability emerged as the number of cases in Spain rose sharply on Thursday to 56,188 confirmed cases and 4,089 deaths. Worldwide, the disease has now infected more than 468,000 and killed over 21,000.

The Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), one of Spain’s leading research institutes, posted on its website that it had found that nose swabs developed by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology had an accuracy rate of less than 30 per cent.

The Spain daily El País reported that the Madrid city government had decided to stop using the Bioeasy kits and the Spanish health ministry had asked the Shenzhen company to replace supplies.

The newspaper said the central government had ordered 340,000 test kits from the company.

Zhu Hai, manager of Bioeasy, declined to comment on the reports, saying: “I’m not clear about the situation. I still haven’t seen the report [from Spain], so I’d need to find out more about it.”

El País said that Spain had been told that the rapid test kit by Bioeasy could produce test results with 80 per cent accuracy, but that was not in line with SEIMC’s findings.

According to Spanish media reports, the test required samples to be taken from the nasopharynx, an area near the base of the skull.

The samples are then diluted and deposited in a cartridge with a test strip which would mark if the sample is positive, negative or invalid. The antigen tests can return a result in 10 to 15 minutes.

Professor Leo Poon Lit-man from the University of Hong Kong’s medical faculty said an 80 per cent accuracy claim for nasal swabs was “perplexing” because this type of test is known to be inaccurate.

“It would be dangerous if it’s used on a large scale, since patients who are supposed to be positive might not be detected,” said Poon, who helped design the Covid-19 testing protocol.

On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in Spain clarified through its Twitter account that the Bioeasy test kits had not been approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration and said they were not included in the medical supplies sent by the Chinese government to Spain.

“The Chinese Ministry of Commerce offered Spain a list of approved suppliers, in which Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology was not included,” the embassy said.

The embassy’s message appeared to be an effort to calm Spanish officials, who announced on Wednesday that they have placed an €432 million (US$468 million) order for Chinese medical equipment and supplies including 550 million face masks, 5.5 million testing kits and 950 ventilators.

The order has still not been shipped out of China, and none of the testing kits were made by Bioeasy, the embassy said.
Bioeasy, which said it focuses on food safety and medical tests on its website, has been promoting its Covid-19 tests in the past month.



On February 19, Baoan Daily , a local newspaper in Shenzhen, reported that Bioeasy had developed coronavirus test kits that could return results within 15 minutes.

But the kits mentioned in the report used blood samples collected from fingertips, instead of the nasal swabs in the Spanish test kits.

Bioeasy claimed that the blood test kit is 83.56 per cent accurate when giving positive results and 92.19 per cent accurate on negative results, according to the Baoan Daily report.

The Czech media has also reported problems with Chinese-made test kits.

On Monday, a local health official in the Moravia-Silesia region claimed that 80 per cent of results from Chinese rapid testing products were flawed. It is not known which company manufactured those kits.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
President Trump Visits Flood-Ravaged Texas, Praises Community Strength and First Responders
×