The University of Washington School of Medicine has alerted Seattle-King County public health officials and other partners to stop using a donated supply of specimen collection kits for coronavirus testing, due to quality control concerns.
In response, the Washington State Department of Health issued a recall order for about 12,000 of the Chinese-made kits, which were sent to local health jurisdictions, tribal nations and its partners across the state.
Concerns were raised on Friday after UW Medicine determined that some of the kits, which were airlifted from Shanghai a couple of weeks ago with logistical assistance from Amazon, showed signs of contamination.
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The liquid in some of the vials that are used to preserve nasal collection swabs after specimen collection was contaminated with a common type of bacteria known as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, The Seattle Times reported.
After discovering the contamination, scientists ran experiments that suggested the presence of the bacteria in the viral transport media didn’t affect the results of tests for the virus, the Times reported. Nevertheless, UW Medicine called a halt to the use of the kits, pending further investigation. Washington’s Department of Health followed suit with the recall order.
“Though the quality control issue has only been observed in a small number of tubes of viral transport media, we adhere to the highest quality standards for COVID-19 testing in Washington state,” Secretary of Health John Wiesman said Sunday in a news release. “We are working with our partners to have them discard the product and will work to replace them as quickly as we can.”
A large shipment of swabs from another vendor is expected this week, and the state has a supply of viral transport media from another vendor, state health officials said.
S. maltophilia can cause infections, but those who were tested before the recall went out are at no risk, due to the fact that they never came in contact with the kit’s transport media,
The recalled collection kits were provided by Lingen Precision Medical Products in Shanghai. The Times reported that UW Medicine allocated $125,000 to purchase the kits. About 20,000 of the kits were donated to Public Health – Seattle & King County, and about 15,000 were donated to the state’s public health lab, the Times quoted Geoff Baird, interim chair of UW’s Department of Laboratory Medicine, as saying.
Seattle businesswoman Anita Nadelson, who helped arrange the shipment, told the Times that the Chinese supplier has promised to refund the investment. “They’re working diligently to identify and cure the issue,” she said.
