Almost two million faulty COVID-19 test kits that claimed it could diagnose the virus in under an hour were ordered by the Canadian government before they even knew if they would work..Health Minister Patricia Hajdu approved orders for 1,920,000 COVID-19 test kits from Spartan Bioscience of Ottawa in April 2020, without performing any due diligence to determine whether the kits would actually work, it was reported..No metrics were provided to demonstrate clinical trial performance..Following an initial delivery of 5,500 kits to the Public Health Agency Canada (PHAC), it was discovered that the devices failed clinical trials on May 1, reported the Toronto Sun..At that point, PHAC had ordered 120,000 kits for delivery by June 1, and a further 200,000 test kits per month from July through until March 2021..PHAC has yet to explain why it didn’t first test the kits, or request supportive clinical trial data, before spending almost $150-million of the taxpayer’s money on defective equipment..“The Government of Canada has a procurement contract with Spartan to secure supply of these devices,” said a May 5 briefing note reported in the Sun..“The contract is conditional on the Spartan test kit being Health Canada authorized for sale.”.Unfortunately, the sale was authorized by PHAC without any of the normal due diligence which would normally precede a supply agreement of this size and import. This suggests that standard government procurement procedures were not followed..Clouding the damaging COVID-optics still further, it was also reported Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Spartan Bioscience just days into the pandemic – and the company received a $273,928 National Research Council (NRC) grant..Somehow, by whatever means, without providing any supportive data, Spartan was awarded a conditional license leading to the whopping $149-million contract..“If successful, its diagnostic platform and COVID-19 test could be used in airports and clinics,” Industry Minister Navdeep Bains said of Spartan’s technology in March 2020..“The device could read the test results within thirty minutes. We’re working with Spartan to ensure Canadian supply of this equipment.”.Spartan names its Test kit “The Spartan Cube”..“It is a DNA analyzer the size of a coffee cup. Samples are collected with a non-invasive swab and inserted into a single-use DNA test cartridge. Inside the analyzer, the cartridge extracts the DNA and makes millions of DNA copies based on Nobel Prize-winning chemistry called Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). An optical system detects the increased fluorescence and algorithms automatically generate a test result,” the corporate website describes..Spartan has now reapplied for its licence..Ken Grafton is the Western Standards Ottawa Bureau Chief. He can be reached at kgrafton@westernstandardonline.com
Almost two million faulty COVID-19 test kits that claimed it could diagnose the virus in under an hour were ordered by the Canadian government before they even knew if they would work..Health Minister Patricia Hajdu approved orders for 1,920,000 COVID-19 test kits from Spartan Bioscience of Ottawa in April 2020, without performing any due diligence to determine whether the kits would actually work, it was reported..No metrics were provided to demonstrate clinical trial performance..Following an initial delivery of 5,500 kits to the Public Health Agency Canada (PHAC), it was discovered that the devices failed clinical trials on May 1, reported the Toronto Sun..At that point, PHAC had ordered 120,000 kits for delivery by June 1, and a further 200,000 test kits per month from July through until March 2021..PHAC has yet to explain why it didn’t first test the kits, or request supportive clinical trial data, before spending almost $150-million of the taxpayer’s money on defective equipment..“The Government of Canada has a procurement contract with Spartan to secure supply of these devices,” said a May 5 briefing note reported in the Sun..“The contract is conditional on the Spartan test kit being Health Canada authorized for sale.”.Unfortunately, the sale was authorized by PHAC without any of the normal due diligence which would normally precede a supply agreement of this size and import. This suggests that standard government procurement procedures were not followed..Clouding the damaging COVID-optics still further, it was also reported Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Spartan Bioscience just days into the pandemic – and the company received a $273,928 National Research Council (NRC) grant..Somehow, by whatever means, without providing any supportive data, Spartan was awarded a conditional license leading to the whopping $149-million contract..“If successful, its diagnostic platform and COVID-19 test could be used in airports and clinics,” Industry Minister Navdeep Bains said of Spartan’s technology in March 2020..“The device could read the test results within thirty minutes. We’re working with Spartan to ensure Canadian supply of this equipment.”.Spartan names its Test kit “The Spartan Cube”..“It is a DNA analyzer the size of a coffee cup. Samples are collected with a non-invasive swab and inserted into a single-use DNA test cartridge. Inside the analyzer, the cartridge extracts the DNA and makes millions of DNA copies based on Nobel Prize-winning chemistry called Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). An optical system detects the increased fluorescence and algorithms automatically generate a test result,” the corporate website describes..Spartan has now reapplied for its licence..Ken Grafton is the Western Standards Ottawa Bureau Chief. He can be reached at kgrafton@westernstandardonline.com
