Coronavirus: 3 out of 4 Chinese test kits in Danish study found to have 90 per cent accuracy rate
- After complaints from foreign buyers about substandard products, findings will be music to the ears of Chinese manufacturers, but study is not yet peer-reviewed
- Researchers looked at test kits used to identify Covid-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit at North Zealand Hospital in the Danish city of Hillerod
In their findings, which were published on the preprint website Medrxiv.org on April 10, meaning they have yet to be peer-reviewed, the researchers said that the study was based on samples taken from people infected with the coronavirus who had been admitted to the intensive care unit at North Zealand Hospital in Hillerod.
The three Chinese subjects – an antibody test known as an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and two point-of-care tests – also had a 100 per cent accuracy rate in detecting patients who did not have the Covid-19 virus, the report said.
“Accurate diagnosis of Covid-19 is essential not only to ensure appropriate patient care but also to facilitate identification of SARS-CoV-2 infected people, including asymptomatic carriers, who need to be isolated to limit virus spread,” the report said.
The fourth Chinese test kit in the study was eliminated from the full test process after performing badly (along with one of the American subjects) in an initial round of testing, it said.