'No Need To Worry About Covid-19 Test's Reliability'

The chairman of the Association of Medical Laboratories, Alex Li, says there’s no need for the public to worry about the reliability of Covid-19 tests to be carried out in Hong Kong next week, after faulty test kits in Sweden led to around 3,700 people testing false positive for the coronavirus.

The test kits used in Sweden were manufactured by BGI Genomics. The company’s Sunrise Diagnostic Centre will also test Hong Kong people's samples in a universal screening programme to be rolled out on Tuesday.

Speaking on an RTHK radio programme, Li said that the 3,700 false positives was just a fraction of the 60,000 to 70,000 Covid-19 tests that Sweden carried out.

He said that no test can be 100 percent accurate, and that doctors – instead of relying on one test result in their diagnosis – will also check to see if the individual in question displays any symptoms, refer to X-ray scans, and carry out a clinical assessment.

Li also said people should be more concerned about false negatives than false positives, because at least with false positives medical personnel can check again to make sure, as opposed to false negative cases that won't be followed up.

On Wednesday night, the government released a statement in response to queries about Sunrise Diagnostic, saying BGI and Sunrise Diagnostic passed external quality tests by the Centre for Health Protection (CHP), and also passed external quality evaluation in the mainland, Japan, the Netherlands, Malaysia and others.

The statement concludes: "At this stage, there is no evidence that the quality of the testing services it provides to the Government falls short of the standard."