China's Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology agrees to replace defective test kits sold to Spain

CHINESE health equipment manufacturer Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology has agreed to replace coronavirus test kits it recently supplied to Spain that were rejected after the Spanish authorities deemed them too inaccurate to be used to diagnose patients.

Spain is one of the worst affected countries as coronavirus has affected 117,710 of its citizens and resulted in 10,935 deaths, second only to Italy. In a bid to combat the spread of the pandemic, the Spanish government ordered a batch of testing kits from China earlier this week but they were found to be defective.

According to Spain's ministry of health, consumer affairs and social welfare, the test kits supplied by Shenzhen Bioeasy were defective and had failed to correctly diagnose people when tested at hospitals. Salvador Illa, Spain's health minister, said that the country had bought $467m worth of medical supplies from China, including 950 ventilators, 5.5m testing kits, 11m gloves and more than half a billion protective face masks.

Following the rejection of the testing kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology has said it will replace them with new ones. According to the company, the incorrect results may be a result of a failure to collect samples or use the kits correctly.

Shenzhen Bioeasy did concede, however, that it had not adequately communicated with clients in how to use the kits. With the global pandemic leading to the shutting down of industry, many companies are not able to manufacture medical equipment as they normally would do, hence why a lot of countries are turning to China.

Foreign affairs analysts say China is using its money, medical equipment and teams of doctors and nurses to compete with the US. Traditional US's traditional allies like Spain, Italy and France are turning to China for help with much-needed medical supplies in these dire times as the Americans are unable to ramp up production to meet the growing need.

Gordon Chang, a foreign affairs expert, said: "China creates the poison and sells the solution to it.  There is no better illustration than the medical supplies and crews of doctors China has been supplying to Italy and other European countries battling Covid-19.

"Beijing does carry a large share of the blame for the global pandemic but now it seeks to shape the narrative of the crisis unfolding before our eyes. Since early March, Chinese officials and state media have been pushing the idea that the killer virus could have originated from somewhere else, notably the US."

In February, a World Health Organisation investigative report concluded that the virus originated from a wildlife market in Wuhan, Hubei province, last November. From Wuhan, the virus spread across China and then went global, becoming a worldwide pandemic.