Permanent Secretary for Food and Health Thomas Chan Chung-ching (left), who leads the working group on mass testing in Hong Kong, gets briefed by Jeremy Cao Sujie, vice-general manager of Sunrise Diagnostic Centre, about the testing arrangements at the temporary air-inflated laboratory at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Centre on Aug 26, 2020. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG - The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said on Wednesday evening that at this stage, there is no evidence that the quality of the testing services which a joint venture provides for the HKSAR government falls short of established standards.

The HKSAR government issued a press release in response to media enquiries on the test results of the Sunrise Diagnostic Center Limited, a joint venture company of BGI in Hong Kong that provides COVID-19 testing services for the HKSAR government.

BGI is one of three virus testing service providers under the HKSAR government's universal COVID-19 testing program

According to the record of the HKSAR government's Department of Health, the temporary air-inflated laboratory at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Center operated with the support of the Sunrise Diagnostic Center Limited passed the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch (PHLSB)'s External Quality Assessment Program (EQAP) on Aug 18 and the accuracy of its sample pooling method was confirmed. In addition, BGI and the Sunrise Diagnostic Center Limited participated in and passed the EQAP for their testing facilities in June and July respectively.

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BGI is one of three virus testing service providers under the HKSAR government's universal COVID-19 testing program.

The HKSAR government said that in accordance with the existing mechanism of the Department of Health, specimens returning a positive COVID-19 result in all private laboratories in Hong Kong are considered preliminary positive. The specimens must be referred to the PHLSB in accordance with established procedures for confirmatory tests. After a positive result is confirmed by the PHLSB, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) will classify it as a confirmed case.

BGI's laboratory and the Department of Health agreed that cases tested as "suspected positive" will be submitted to the Department of Health for further re-examination, and the final diagnosis report will be issued by the Department of Health

Generally speaking, it is not uncommon for the PHLSB and the private laboratories to have discordant results using different platforms during the confirmatory process, and it has happened occasionally in the past. The Department of Health may collect samples for the relevant cases again for further testing if necessary, the HKSAR government said.

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BGI said on Wednesday that the COVID-19 detection reagent developed by it passed multiple tests by international authoritative organizations, and has obtained relevant qualifications and certifications from different countries. It has also been included in the emergency use listing by the World Health Organization.

BGI's laboratory and the Department of Health agreed that cases tested as "suspected positive" will be submitted to the Department of Health for further re-examination, and the final diagnosis report will be issued by the Department of Health.

Also on Wednesday, government officials inspected and expressed satisfaction with the preparedness of Fire Eye Laboratory at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Center to support large-scale COVID-19 testing to be launched on Sept 1.