Illustrative stock photo (source: TASR)
The Health Ministry has warned the mobile testing sites against the use of the Clinitest Rapid Covid-19 Antigen Test by Siemens, claiming it may not be reliable, the Sme daily reported.
The batch of 15 million tests was purchased by ex-health minister Marek Krajčí (OĽaNO) in early March. The original plan was to use them for self-diagnostics.
“Given a high number of reports on the error rate of these antigen tests by Siemens, we’d like to ask you for cooperation in potential control,” the crisis operational centre of the Health Ministry said, as quoted by Sme.
Apart from the Siemens tests worth €57.75 million, the ministry obtained 20 million Standard Q Covid Ag Tests by SD Biosensor worth €81.4 million, which have been recently certified for self-diagnostics by the Slovak Office of Standards, Metrology and Testing.
Tests with errors
The Health Ministry has received several error reports on the purchased rapid tests by Siemens from the mobile testing sites but failed to provide more details on whether these errors were related to false positivity or negativity, or low quality.
