Peru bet on cheap Chinese coronavirus antibody tests – it didn’t go well
- Health officials knew molecular tests for Covid-19 were best option, but country did not have the needed labs or technicians
- Misuse of antibody blood tests producing sizeable number of false positives and negatives, helping fuel one of world’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the harried health officials of Peru faced a quandary. They knew molecular tests for Covid-19 were the best option to detect the virus – yet they didn’t have the labs, the supplies, or the technicians to make them work.
But there was a cheaper alternative – antibody tests, mostly from China, that were flooding the market at a fraction of the price and could deliver a positive or negative result within minutes of a simple fingerstick.
In March, President Martin Vizcarra took the airwaves to announce he had signed off on a massive purchase of 1.6 million tests – almost all of them for antibodies.
Now, interviews with experts, public purchase orders, import records, government resolutions, patients, and Covid-19 health reports show that the country’s bet on rapid antibody tests went dangerously off course.
This was a multi-systemic failure. We should have stopped the rapid tests by now
Unlike almost every other nation, Peru is relying heavily on rapid antibody blood tests to diagnose active cases – a purpose for which they are not designed.