Tricks to profit from COVID-19 test kits by Director of CDC Da Nang

On the afternoon of June 20, the Investigation Police Agency of Da Nang City Police issued a decision to prosecute the case, prosecute the accused and execute a 4-month temporary detention order against Mr. Ton That Thanh (born in 1964), Director of CDC Da Nang and Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan (born in 1982), Head of the Testing Department of CDC Da Nang, for the act of "Embezzlement of property", prosecuted the accused and applied preventive measures of prohibiting Le Thi Kim Chi (born in 1986), a testing staff of CDC Da Nang, from leaving the place of residence for the same act.

Initial investigation results of Da Nang City Police showed that during the COVID-19 testing process at Da Nang CDC, Head of the Testing Department, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, directed staff to reduce the types of biological products (purchased from Viet A Technology Joint Stock Company and other funding sources) and reported dishonestly to create a surplus of biological products and leave them off the books.

Police are searching the suspects' offices at CDC Da Nang.

Specifically, for the COVID-19 RNA manual extraction kit, the packaging is 50 kits/box, equivalent to 50 test samples. Due to cutting during use, each box has 2-3 kits left over. For the RNA automatic extraction kit, the packaging is 960 kits/box, equivalent to 960 test samples. Due to cutting during use, each box usually has about 192-288 kits left over.

For COVID-19 PCR test kits, each kit corresponds to one test sample. In 2021, Da Nang CDC received funding for Realtime -RT-PCR kits from Korean company Kogene from Phuong Trang Company. In reality, this type of kit can run 2 test samples. However, in the books and reports on the consumption of Da Nang CDC's kits, each kit from Korean company Kogene only runs one test sample, the remaining sample is reported as running the kit from Viet A Company. This increases the number of Viet A test kits on the consumption report and leaves a large number of Viet A kits in reality.

In July 2020, Mr. Phan Quoc Viet - General Director of Viet A Company and some employees went to CDC Da Nang to support testing for COVID-19 prevention and control. At this time, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan asked Mr. Viet to legalize the surplus kits. At Ms. Nhan's request, Mr. Viet discussed with Mr. Thanh to request a policy to handle the reduced test kits by transferring them to Viet A. In return, Viet A Company will send money to Mr. Thanh, Ms. Nhan and some other related people equal to the value of the actual goods received.

Following this policy, Ms. Nhan then directly delivered the surplus test kits to Viet A Company employees many times or assigned Le Thi Kim Chi, an employee of the Testing Department, to deliver them. The total number of biological products and materials that Ms. Nhan and Chi delivered to Viet A Company was 21,000 automatic extraction kits, 10,000 manual extraction kits, 2,400 PCR test kits and 74,500 1.5ml empty tube samples with a total value of VND 4,063 billion. Mr. Phan Quoc Viet directed his employees to continue selling these biological products and materials to Da Nang City through subsequent contracts or to units that needed to buy biological products from Viet A Company.

Police searched the private home of suspect Ton That Thanh.

During the investigation, Da Nang City Police discovered that the remaining supplies worth more than 2 billion VND were hidden by the subjects in the changing room in the restroom of the Testing Department because they had not yet been disposed of. Accounting documents of Da Nang CDC show that all of the above biological products delivered to the Testing Department have been used up. The chief accountant of Da Nang CDC confirmed that in the books, there was no case of Da Nang CDC returning the goods to Viet A Company in any form. In addition to the 3 individuals prosecuted for embezzlement of assets at CDC, the Police Agency is currently continuing to investigate the responsibility of other individuals in the bidding for the purchase of supplies and equipment for COVID-19 prevention and control in Da Nang City.

CDC Da Nang was established in 2018, on the basis of merging public service units under the City Department of Health including the Center for Preventive Medicine, Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, Center for Health Education and Communication, Center for Reproductive Health Care and the City International Health Quarantine Center. At that time, Mr. Ton That Thanh - Director of the City Center for Preventive Medicine was appointed to the position of Director of CDC Da Nang.

CDC Da Nang is recognized as the first unit in the country to pilot the implementation of pooled samples for COVID-19 testing using the PCR method since May 2020. When the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, especially from the end of July to October 2021, with the reason of needing to promptly detect and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community, Da Nang City implemented many large-scale lockdowns, conducting representative testing of households across the city with the highest frequency of up to 3 times/week with millions of test samples performed.

This method is said to be many times more economical than testing single samples, and can speed up testing progress in conditions of limited equipment, human resources, and material resources, quickly detecting cases in the community.

At that time, Mr. Ton That Thanh had stated that timely and appropriate testing had detected and removed many COVID-19 cases from the community and thoroughly handled F1 and F2 cases. The results of the testing, monitoring and handling of the COVID-19 epidemic by the CDC Da Nang were recognized and highly appreciated by the City People's Committee and were rewarded by the Central Government. However, there were also many disagreements when the testing was carried out continuously, showing signs of abuse and causing waste.

In addition to the embezzlement of the above defendants, was there any violation of bidding regulations and receiving “kickbacks” from Viet A Company in purchasing hundreds of billions of VND worth of testing reagents in Da Nang City? This issue is being further investigated and clarified by Da Nang City Police.