Chinese Covid-19 test kits able to screen 51 million people daily, in ‘strong’ boost to pandemic fight

Name: 3.6 million in southwestern China city of Baise locked down after single Covid-19 case
Uploaded: 2022-02-11T04:00:22.000Z
Duration: 1 min 21 s
Description: 3.6 million in southwestern China city of Baise locked down after single Covid-19 case

Regulatory body National Medical Products Administration says it approved 68 Covid-19 test products by end of last year

Stringent testing regimens nationwide also spelt a windfall for kit producers, but profits seen to dip as price controls bite

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An official in protective gear carries Covid-19 PCR test kits at the Winter Olympics village in Beijing. Photo: Kyodo

Josephine Ma

Published: 12:00pm, 11 Feb 2022Updated: 1:34pm, 11 Feb 2022

China has developed the capacity to produce enough Covid-19 test kits to screen 51 million people daily, providing “strong” logistical support to pandemic control measures, according to the country’s drugs and medical devices regulatory body.

The National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) said it had approved 68 Covid-19 test products by the end of last year – including reagents for 34 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, 31 antibody tests and three antigen tests.

“The [testing] capacity has reached 51.3 million per day. It has provided a strong guarantee to the [national] pandemic control work,” the NMPA said in its annual report for 2021.

Regulators were also assessing how well the approved tests performed in detecting new Covid-19 variants, to make sure they were sensitive enough for future strains, the recently released report said.

This comes as China steadfastly insists on what it calls a “dynamic zero- tolerance” approach to Covid-19, even though most of the world has shifted to living with the virus, with Sweden going so far as to declare the pandemic over.

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3.6 million in southwestern China city of Baise locked down after single Covid-19 case

Chinese authorities mobilise huge amounts of resources and manpower to carry out mass tests each time an outbreak is reported.