(Reuters) – Becton Dickinson said on Tuesday it is investigating reports from U.S. nursing homes that its rapid coronavirus testing equipment is producing false-positive results.
Tests conducted on the company’s Veritor Plus system for detecting the virus are reporting multiple false positive results in some cases, Becton said.
The inaccurate results were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
So far, the number of false-positive reports is small and the company has contacted the sites and is actively investigating the situation to obtain additional details, a spokesperson for Becton told Reuters in an email.
The company, under its agreement with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, provides more than 11,000 nursing homes in the country with COVID-19 tests for its residents and staff.
In July, the U.S. government agreed to buy 2,000 of the company’s BD Veritor Plus Systems and 750,000 of its SARS-CoV-2 antigen test, as the country ramps up testing for the virus that has been spreading at an alarming rate.
Becton Dickinson plans to produce 10 million tests through September and then ramp up to producing 2 million tests per week thereafter.
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)
