Coronavirus Testing In Venezuela

I’ve recently seen a number of stats showing that Venezuela has tested over 140,000 people for COVID-19, but what are the facts behind those statistics?

The first cases of Coronavirus in Venezuela were reported on the 13th March, exactly 1 month prior to the writing of this article. In 1 month Venezuela claims to have carried out over 180,000 Coronavirus tests, mainly using test kits acquired from China. 2 days after the first reported COVID-19 cases in Venezuela, a number of states were placed in ‘social lockdown’ by Maduro and on the 17th March, Maduro announced a nationwide mandatory quarantine for 30 days, which has since been extended for a further 30 days. Maduro also shut Venezuela’s borders, including passenger aircraft, although some rescue flights for foreign citizens have since taken place.

Currently Venezuela has had 181 positive cases of Coronavirus and just 9 deaths.

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus started, Maduro has established a weekly airlift of medical aid from China to Venezuela, this includes protective equipment and Rapid Antibody Test Kits. Last week Russia sent some equipment to help Venezuela perform PCR (Polymerase Chain reaction) Tests. PCR tests are currently the most commonly used test for COVID-19 where a swab is taken from the nose or mouth and through chemical reactions, can detect as little as 1 virus particle, although these tests sometimes need to be conducted multiple times to get a positive result with some patients. The PCR test is the current recommended testing method by the World Health Organization for COVID-19.

Currently the National Institute of Hygiene (INH) conducts all PCR testing in Venezuela, they currently have the capacity to perform around 100 PCR tests per day, between the first positive case in Venezuela and the writing of this article the INH had the capacity to perform 3,100 COVID-19 tests. On April 8th the INH had completed 1,779 COVID-19 PCR tests, just under 1% of all Venezuelas Coronavirus tests have been PCR tests, most of these tests have only been used to confirm results from rapid tests.

The remaining 180,000 tests, if that is the true number of tests that have been carried out, have been conducted using Antibody rapid test kits, where a blood sample is taken to determine whether someone currently has COVID-19 or has had COVID-19 in the past few weeks by detecting antibodies in the blood. These test kits are not recommended by the World Health Organization who say they shouldn’t be used outside of trials. Dale Fisher, Chair of the World Health Organizations Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network said that Antibody tests should not be used for Coronavirus diagnosis. These Antibody tests have proven to be unreliable and inaccurate.

Wondfo Antibody tests that are currently being used in Venezuela

The rapid tests being used in Venezuela are made by Wondfo Biotech, a Chinese medical company. The same test was purchased by the UK where they trialled the antibody test to see if it was fit for widespread use. Professor John Newton, the UK’s testing chief said that none of the test kits seen by the UK were fit for widespread use. Due to false positives when using this antibody test for diagnostics, tens of thousands might have received a negative result that they don’t have COVID-19 but they are in fact infected.

Spain is also using rapid test kits in their testing, but they specify that currently rapid test kits are only 64-80% accurate. In a best case scenario where 80% of rapid test kits are accurate, 36,000 tests carried out in Venezuela could have given inaccurate results. Spain states that if a patient with symptoms uses a Rapid Test kit and tests negative, they should be tested again using a PCR test to confirm. According to reports in Venezuela, this is not happening. Venezuela does not have the PCR capacity to carry out an accurate mass testing policy.

*Official testing from labs in Spain have released official data on the Wondfo rapid test. The test has a 100% specificity rate but the sensitivity rate of the test is only 64%, rising to 80% after 7 days. On average the test will miss 4/10 positive cases of Coronavirus.