Dutch biotech company Inzek sold more than 1.5 million coronavirus blood tests to governments and hospitals in more than 20 countries, according to an investigation by Trouw.

The company advertised its tests online as ‘Dutch-made’ even though they had been bought from a Chinese manufacturer, Alltest, that sold an identical test under its own name. Inzek has since removed the reference to ‘Dutch-made’ from its website.

Inzek claimed that the tests produced ‘very accurate’ results within 10 minutes, but two independent academic studies found they were reliable in less than 50% of cases.

The tests check blood samples for the presence of antibodies in a person’s bloodstream, indicating that they have had the virus. However, researchers at Spanish universities found that the Chinese version of the test produced a false result in more than half of cases.

Inzek has insisted that its test is 90% reliable. But Marien de Jonge, a researcher at Radboudumc university medical centre in Nijmegen, told Trouw that important details were missing from a clinical study that the company relied on. ‘Unreliable tests are a big danger to public health,’ he said.

The study was dismissed as ‘rubbish’ by Claire Standley, a expert in infectious diseases at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

The European Commission and the Dutch Outbreak Management Team have said there is no reliable ‘instant results’ test available for corona antibodies.

Inzek has sold its ‘Dutch-made’ testing kits to health authorities and hospitals in countries including Russia, Serbia and Benin, according to Trouw. Around 15 Dutch hospitals and laboratories and more than 100 pharmacies have also bought tests via distributor Bipharma.