KARACHI, Aug 29: Absence of any regulatory authority for adequate assessment and monitoring of blood-screening kits in the city is leading to a surge in faulty and conflicting results.

Local pathologists fear the situation might be causing misleading test results of evaluation, with every possible chance that many of the positive cases for malaria, hepatitis-C virus, hepatitis- B virus etc might be missed out.

It may be mentioned that components for many of these kits are imported by a number of local firms who then assemble the kits. The raw material, often claimed to be imported from either US or Europe, are generally procured from China, Korea or Taiwan.

These “kits” often are witnessed to be falsely labelled, though with absolute impunity, as either they are certified by the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) of the United States of America or approved from the Paul Ehrilich Institute of Europe.

Dr Syed Abdul Mujeeb of the blood bank of the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC), talking to APP, said the entire South Asian region was flooded with fake and poor quality kits.

He reminded that as no controlling authority to verify originality and efficacy existed, it was easy to bluff local institutions as well as professionals.

The senior pathologist, however, mentioned that some conscientious firm-owners did approach experienced personnel to ensure that kits marketed by them were of required standard, and if informed of any fault they did withdraw their product against a hefty loss.

“But keeping in view the mushrooming growth of kits’ assembling units in the country, a fair play cannot be expected from every body,” he added.

In this context he also mentioned that many of the kits claimed to be FDA-certified were rejected by the very US authority itself on the ground that products approved by them were meant to be safe enough in the USA only.—APP