The Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC) has "complete confidence" in the kits, produced in partnership with three other entities for testing Covid-19, and whose distribution was suspended this Saturday, May 23, by Infarmed.
The news was Observer who said that Infarmed "has doubts about the safety" of the kits, prohibiting their distribution "until they have answers".
Contacted by Sul Informação, Nuno Marques, president of ABC, guaranteed that these kits, which have already been used to carry out tests in crèches and homes in the Algarve and Alentejo, as well as in other parts of the country, «give us safety and effectiveness».
«What Infarmed did was a request for elements that we received yesterday afternoon, Saturday. With that, it suspended the distribution, but there is still no opinion», framed.
The kits are produced by the Algarve Biomedical Centre, in partnership with the Instituto Superior Técnico and the companies Logoplaste and Hidrofer.
ABC, in particular, produces «the liquid means of transport, following the recipe of the National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA)», while, for example, Hidrofer is responsible for the swabs. Instituto Superior Técnico does the sterilization.
Despite Nuno Marques assuring “we have experts in all areas», Infarmed decided to make this request for more elements.
«Basically, it is a request for clarification that is related to the swabs, but also to INSA's own recipe. We will, of course, give an answer, in principle at the beginning of this week», Nuno Marques told our newspaper.
The Observer news reports that 48 kits have already been distributed, but the president of ABC is not sure about these numbers. "There were thousands, but I don't know if that number is correct," he explained.
The truth is that, for now, the use of these kits is suspended, something that, even so, does not affect testing in the Algarve. “We still have some swabs, which had been purchased and are available. We are not going to stop the tests because we do not have this need for now», he guaranteed.
Recalling the beginning of this partnership between ABC, Instituto Superior Técnico and the two companies, Nuno Marques believes that, without the solution found, with the production of these kits, the situation of the pandemic in Portugal would be much worse.
“We were at a time when there were no swabs in the country. The governors asked us for a national mobilization, the research centers got together and created a solution available to the country that made it possible to carry out tests that would otherwise have been impossible. Certainly we would have had more deaths in the country because we all know the importance of being one of the countries that performed the most tests», he says.
Therefore, Nuno Marques sees this request by Infarmed as a «bureaucratic proforma», leaving a new ingredients the story.
“This question appears now because there is a request for the possibility of marketing these kits. When the kits began to be used, we did not have the mandatory opinion for marketing, but what is happening is that, to date, we have not made any sales, despite requests», he said.
Moreover, the Health minister herself addressed this issue today, 24 May, at the usual daily press conference. Marta Temido said that it is necessary to "distinguish" between the "testing performance criteria and market introduction criteria".
Therefore, this request for elements does not invalidate the "production of certain results".
"The fact that we have our regulatory authorities reporting that certain items are not yet in a position to be marketed is just a sign that they are working and playing their role," concluded the minister.
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