South Korean Firm Starts Producing Covid-19 Rapid Test Kits in India on Mass Scale After Chinese Ones Found Faulty

New Delhi: A South Korea-based company has established an Indian subsidiary in Haryana's Manesar and rolled out five lakh rapid antibody test kits now available for use as the coronavirus pandemic rages on.

SD Biosensor, which started production from its Manesar facility with a capacity to churn out 5,00,000 rapid test kits, aims to scale up production in the coming weeks to meet the growing demand, said a statement from the Embassy of India in South Korea's capital Seoul.

The company's chairperson Young-shik Cho on Tuesday called on Sripriya Ranganathan, India's Ambassador to South Korea, to discuss the company’s activities and plans for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move came a day after sources in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said India will procure at least five lakh rapid test kits from South Korea. The consignments from Humasis Ltd are expected to arrive in four batches starting April 30 as a part of the central pool and will be given to states.

The rapid test kits help examine whether a person has developed antibodies in their blood stream to fight the novel coronavirus, which indicates whether a person has been exposed to or has COVID-19.

The South Korean company ramping up production in India attains significance since China-made rapid testing kits for coronavirus have been found to be faulty on several occasions and have delivered inaccurate results.

The Rajasthan government on Tuesday stopped using the China-made rapid testing kits for coronavirus, with state's health minister Raghu Sharma saying they gave only 5.4% accurate results against the expectation of 90% accuracy and so were of no benefit. After the complaint from a few other states, the ICMR advised states to not use these kits for two days until it comes out with a fresh advisory.

Ranganathan had indicated that India is likely to be the beneficiary of South Korea's manufacturing plans post the Covid-19 crisis and how the world does business.

"I am hopeful that over the next few months, this will obviously not be an immediate development, but over the next few months more Korean companies will see the merit of setting up their manufacturing in India so that they are able to meet the huge demands of India right there, from there,” she had told CNN-News18 in an exclusive interview over the phone from Seoul.

In a post COVID-19 scenario, countries like the United States, South Korea and Japan, which are hugely dependent on China, are looking at alternatives and India could emerge as a preferred destination provided it is able to step up the game.

Ranganathan also said South Korea has stepped up its production of COVID-19 testing kits tremendously to meet the current requirements. She said, "Over the next few weeks and months, we should be able to take advantage of this capacity and this very positive feeling towards India to be able to enhance our sourcing from there."