Potentially defective medical kits, which allow people to test themselves for HIV, have been placed on the Irish market, the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) has warned.

According to the board, it is investigating the supplier of these kits, Celtic Integrated Network and its website. This follows ‘proactive surveillance’, during which the IMB identified a HIV test kit ‘that does not meet the requirements of medical device legislation’.

It is thought that this supplier may have distributed the product to pharmacists or to members of the public directly via internet auction sites.

“We are urging consumers who may have purchased kits from this supplier not to use them and return them to the pharmacy of purchase or to contact the IMB. These kits may not work properly and thus provide unreliable results, posing a risk to public health and safety”, the IMB said.

To date, potentially defective HIV and chlamydia self-test kits have been placed on the Irish market. However the IMB is also concerned that testing kits for syphilis, pregnancy, ABO/Rhesus blood typing, cholesterol and prostate specific antigen (PSA) may also have been sold here.

The IMB is working on this case in partnership with the Gardai and Customs and Excise. Evidence suggests that some of these test kits have been assembled from components of other kits that have been shown to be past their expiry date.

Posted: 10|2|06 at 1:51 pm. Filed under: Auction News.