The Government today said it has been maintaining a robust regulatory mechanism to strictly monitor the quality of community nucleic acid testing services, adding that no reports or complaints about forgery of testing specimens have been received so far.

The Health Bureau made the remarks in response to media enquiries on the regulatory mechanism of community nucleic acid testing services.

It pointed out that the Government strictly monitors the quality of such services through measures including continuous cross-checking of testing statistics reported by testing contractors against those recorded in the government internal information technology system, as well as regular spot-checking and review of different types of testing cases, in order to safeguard the credibility of testing results and the proper use of public money.

In addition, the Government has all along been requiring all testing contractors to ensure that community testing centres and stations are run properly as stipulated and in compliance with various daily operation and infection control requirements.

Noting that a detailed investigation will be conducted, the bureau stressed that if there is any suspected fraud or forgery of record, it will not tolerate and will pass the case to enforcement departments for follow-up.

Since last month, the usage of free testing services at community testing centres and stations has shown a gradual declining trend.

In view of the COVID-19 epidemic development, the Government earlier announced that free nucleic acid testing services will no longer be provided in the community testing network from March 1.

The operation of the testing services will also be scaled down, with only 21 community testing centres and stations retained to provide self-paid nucleic acid testing services for citizens.