A medical worker collects a swab sample from a person at a mobile nucleic acid testing site for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), following the outbreak, in Beijing, China February 23, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
SHANGHAI, March 12 (Reuters) - China has granted approval to five COVID-19 antigen kits made by local companies to be used for self-testing, state broadcaster CCTV said on Saturday, as it tweaks its testing regime that has been pressured by Omicron.
China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) published a notice on Friday saying Beijing Huaketai Biotechnology had been allowed to make changes to its COVID-19 antigen test kit's device certificate.
It published a similar approval for four other companies, Nanjing Vazyme Biotech (688105.SS), Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech (300482.SZ), Beijing Jinwofu Bioengineering Technology and a BGI Genomics (300676.SZ) subsidiary, Shenzhen Huada Yinyuan Pharmaceutical Technology, on Saturday.
While the NMPA did not provide more information, CCTV said the NMPA approvals marked the official market launch of new COVID-19 antigen self-test kits.
The approvals come after the country's health regulator on Friday said it would allow the general public to buy COVID-19 antigen self-test kits in stores and online for the first time.
In the past two years, medical workers in many Chinese cities have swabbed hundreds of thousands of noses and throats within days after just a handful of cases emerged, using nucleic acid tests that require labs to process samples. The scale of effort has helped China keep its caseload tiny by global standards.
However, some experts said it has become increasingly challenging for that strategy to keep up with the spread of the Omicron variant. China's daily rise of domestically transmitted cases reached a two-year high this week with many asymptomatic carriers.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Subscribe to our sustainability newsletter to make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments.
Subscribe to our newsletter to get all the news you need to start your day.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.
Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology.
The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs.
The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals.
Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile.
Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts.
Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.