Health Ministry purchasing additional 100,000 rapid diagnostic test kits via fast track process

Amid a concern over the efficacy of rapid diagnostic test kits purchased from China, the Ministry of Health and Population has started the process to purchase additional 100,000 RDT kits through fast track procedures.

According to Bhogendra Dotel, director at Management Division under the Department of Health Services, the deadline for the procurement tender called three days ago expired on Monday.
“We have distributed all the test kits bought from China earlier. We need additional kits immediately as their demand is too high,” Dotel told the Post.
Earlier, the Ministry of Health and Population had purchased 75,000 RDT kits for
$600,000. The procurement process had landed in controversy after it was revealed that the ministry had awarded the contract to Omni Business Corporate International, a private firm, without following the Public Procurement Regulation.
Furthermore, Omni had failed to deliver the goods on time while its procurement process was also questionable.
The government has since scrapped the contract with Omni. It has also distributed the RDT kits, supplied by the company, to health facilities across the country without determining their efficacy.
Public health experts have questioned the validity of the test results from those kits. They have also suggested not to rely only on the rapid tests, which can give misleading results sometimes as seen in Udayapur where the people residing in a mosque whose RDT test results came negative, only to later test positive when they underwent polymerase chain reaction tests.