tamilnadu health minister C Vijayabaskar on monday said the state has not incurred any expenditure on rapid antibody test kits from china as the 24,000 kits imported are being returned to Chinese company Wond Fo and the other orders placed with it are cancelled. He was responding to the questions raised by DMK President MK stalin and AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran on the high cost of procuring the rapid antibody test kits. 

In a statement, Vijayabaskar said as per the orders of indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 24,000 kits imported from Wond Fo are being returned and the remaining purchase orders have been cancelled. The cancellation comes after ICMR on monday ordered states to stop using kits from two Chinese companies Wond Fo and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics. This comes following reports from multiple states that the kits are faulty.  The issue arose a week ago, when the rajasthan government stopped using the rapid antibody testing Kits for coronavirus after they delivered inaccurate results. raghu Sharma, the rajasthan health minister revealed that the rapid test kits had only 5.4 per cent accuracy.

Vijayabaskar said the state government had placed an order with Wond Fo, a company approved by ICMR, at a price of Rs 600 excluding taxes. He said the ICMR had approved seven manufacturers and Wond Fo is one of them. Wond Fo had appointed Cadilla Pharma and Matrix Labs as importer agents. A court dispute between the distributor and importer of COVID-19 tests on monday had revealed that ICMR agreed to pay almost 2.5 times the price at which rapid antibody test kits are imported. And because ICMR set the price at Rs 600 per kit, even state governments like the government of tamil Nadu had to set an exorbitant amount per kit. The actual cost of the kit only comes up to Rs 245. Vijayabaskar said neighbouring andhra pradesh and kerala had placed their orders for Rs 730 and Rs 699 per unit, respectively, while the ICMR had placed its second order at Rs 795 per unit.