Covid tests recalled in the US over possible contamination

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled over half a million Covid tests over bacterial contamination concerns today, May 5.

With serious concerns over contamination, these Pilot COVID-19 At-Home Tests, which were mostly distributed through the CVS drugstore, with a small proportion distributed through Amazon, have been recalled.

With immediate worries over consumer safety as well as further concerns over inaccurate results, the FDA has made the lot numbers of those kits suspected to be contaminated available on their website.

These tests should be disposed of immediately.

The FDA has warned of the potential risks associated with the contaminated kits, which weren’t made available through one of the federal government’s testing programmes, saying on their website:

“The liquid solution provided in the affected Pilot COVID-19 At-Home Test kits has been found to be contaminated with organisms such as Enterococcus, Enterobacter, Klebsiella and Serratia species. Individuals performing the self-test may run the risk of direct contact with the contaminated liquid in the tube.”

They go on to add:

“Infection from bacteria such as Enterococcus, Enterobacter, Klebsiella and Serratia species may cause illness in people with weakened immune systems or those with direct exposure to the contaminated liquid solution”.

CBS News showed an image of the contaminated product on Twitter saying:

“Thousands of COVID tests should be thrown out immediately over bacteria risk, the FDA warns.”

The issue “was identified during routine quality assurance testing”, Roche said in a statement, according to CBS News.

SD Biosensor and their distributor, Roche, are said to be working with the FDA, while they investigate the problem.

Baik concluded that to date, nobody has contracted any illness due to the product, with the contamination found during a quality control assessment.