A million test kits become 300,000 due to lack of stocks: producer

Authorities had originally wanted to buy over 1 million of Covid-19 test kits for concerned citizens to take the test at home, a CUHK researcher said.

Ricky Chiu Yin-to, founder of biochemical company and a local test kit manufacturer Phase Scientific International, said authorities instead bought 300,000 test kits from them to facilitate easy testing and flush out possible silent carriers.

Speaking in a radio program on Tuesday, Chiu said his company produces 10 million test kits a month, adding his kits are over 80 percent accurate. But as the only test kit manufacturer in Greater China region to be approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, over 90 percent of their products are supplied abroad.

So when Hong Kong authorities approached Phase to buy over 1 million test kits, the company could only supply 300,000 available stocks.

This came after the Home Affairs Department on Monday announced it would distribute 300,000 rapid Covid test kits to citizens for free. The kits will be available across 18 districts in the coming several weeks for citizens in need, including elderly people, foreign domestic helpers and those who suspect they have contracted the virus, to cut hidden transmission chains in the community.

However, taking the Phase test kits will not be seen as fulfilling the government's mandatory test requirements. Chiu believed authorities would want to focus the distribution of his test kits in high-risk districts, including Tuen Mun, but said the department will iron out details.

Asked if the company can make more kits, he said: “It’ll be difficult to do so in January, maybe we can produce more in February.”

“Maybe authorities want to make more test kits available to citizens now, before the Lunar New Year holiday,” he said.

“Citizens can use the product and take the test themselves before visiting families, to make them feel safer.”

Explaining how easy the test is, Chiu said a user only has to take the cotton swab and insert it one inch inside his nostril and swirl it around five times and repeat the same steps with the same swab in the other nostril for the sampling process.

He reminded citizens to keep the swab close to the nasal wall, to get samples from the mucous membrane. After that, the user has to insert the swab to a bottle of solvent and swirl it inside the bottle for 20 times. Then he can put the swab aside and squeeze three drops of the solvent onto the test board and wait for 20 minutes.

The test board resembles pregnancy tests and will show one line for negative result and two for positive. But he asked citizens not to panic if they see two lines, as results could be affected by dirt inside the nostrils. They should call the hotline on the users’ guide and staffers will send another test kit for them to retake the test.

If results come back positive again, Phase will send a nurse to the user’s home and take samples for them for a PCR test -- a higher standard test used in community test centers. He said citizens can also buy the test kit for HK$120 each at pharmacies and drug stores now.