As the number of coronavirus deaths in Italy soar, all eyes have turned to another European country that’s quickly become a virus hot spot.

Coronavirus: Spain becomes new danger spot in Europe

Spain is among one of the worst countries in the world for coronavirus cases and now it’s been revealed the testing they’ve been doing isn’t accurate.

The country’s capital has been forced to stop using a Chinese rapid COVID-19 test kit after research suggested it was not accurate enough.

The research found nose swabs developed by Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology had an accuracy rate of less than 30 per cent.

The research prompted the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology to formally recommend not using the tests.

Now the Madrid government has decided to stop using the kits, with the Spanish health ministry asking the company to replace 340,000 supplies.

Concerns were raised after the number of cases in the country increased dramatically on Thursday to 56,188 confirmed cases and 4089 deaths.

It has the second-highest number of fatalities in the world after Italy.

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Spain was reportedly told the kits had an 80 per cent accuracy.

They can return a result in 10 to 15 minutes.

Bioeasy manager Zhu Hai told the South China Morning Post he could not comment on the findings because he had not yet seen the Spanish reports.

But Professor Leo Poon Lit-man, from the University of Hong Kong, said an 80 per cent accuracy claim was “perplexing” because the type of test was known to be inaccurate.

“It would be dangerous if it’s used on a large scale, since patients who are supposed to be positive might not be detected,” he told SCMP.

Czech media has also reported problems with Chinese-made test kits, with an official claiming 80 per cent of results were flawed.

However, it is not known which company manufactured those kits.

Spanish officials announced this week they had ordered 550 million face masks, 5.5 million testing kits and 950 ventilators from China.

But the Chinese embassy in Spain said none of the testing kits were made by Bioeasy