Britain’s attempt to ramp up mass coronavirus testing has been dealt a blow after key components ordered from overseas were discovered to be contaminated with coronavirus, the Telegraph can disclose. Laboratories across the country were on Monday warned to expect a delay after traces of the virus were detected in parts due for delivery in the coming days. It comes as ministers and public health chiefs face growing questions over why Britain’s testing capacity appears to be lagging far behind other major nations including the US and South Korea. To accelerate production, the government has enlisted private firms to help produce thousands of kits in the hope that mass testing will be available to the public within weeks. One of the suppliers - the Luxembourg-based firm Eurofins - sent an email on Monday morning to government laboratories in the UK warning that a delivery of key components called “probes and primers” had been contaminated with coronavirus and would be delayed. The firm admitted there had been “an issue” and insisted other private providers had suffered the same problem. Exactly how the contamination occurred is not clear, and senior health sources insisted the delay would not significantly affect the UK’s testing programme. Meanwhile, Downing Street accused Public Health England of providing ministers with incorrect information on the number of coronavirus tests conducted after Michael Gove claimed that 10,000 had been completed on Sunday. Only 8,278 tests were carried out in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday morning.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman was yesterday forced to clarify that Mr Gove had been referring to the capacity available, rather than the actual number completed, which had been lower. It came 24 hours after Mr Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, stated the Government’s target of 10,000 tests per day had been hit, with ministers now pushing for 25,000 by mid-April. However, confusion mounted when official figures published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that just under 7,000 people had been tested, significantly lower than Mr Gove had claimed. On Monday morning, health minister Helen Whately added to the uncertainty when she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have achieved the capacity to have 10,000 tests a day. The actual number that was tested on the day in question was I think around 7,000.” To compound the issue further, PHE released the latest figures just minutes later, stating that between Friday morning and 9am on Saturday 9,114 tests had been completed. PHE also stated that “testing capacity for patient care stands at 10,949 a day”, prompting questions as to whether, despite overwhelming demand, health services failed to carry out the maximum number of tests available. Last night Whitehall sources claimed the error had occurred due to Public Health England failing to make clear to ministers the distinction between the capacity available and the number that had actually been completed. They added that a number of people were tested more than once, thereby resulting in the disparity between the statistics. Government sources said the discrepancy was partly caused by hospitals not knowing at the start of each day how many people would need to be tested, and holding back enough capacity to ensure they did not run out of tests.

The Telegraph also understands that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, has also privately expressed frustration that testing may not be being carried out at full capacity and has ordered any excess tests to be used on NHS staff. NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said roll-out of testing will begin this week after staff were sampled on Saturday and Sunday. On March 11 the UK announced it had carried out 25,000 tests in total and was aiming for 10,000 a day — a target it has yet to reach. Ministers are hoping that a new antibody test that discovers whether a person has previously contracted the virus will be ready within weeks. Food delivery company Ocado has ordered 100,000 Covid-19 testing kits for staff but has promised to hand them over to the NHS if required. It has paid £1.5m for the testing kits, with 40,000 already delivered and a further 60,000 to come, while celebrities have been paying up to £375 to have tests done privately. But experts yesterday questioned why Britain was lagging so far behind other nations in mass testing of the population. Professor Graham Medley, chair of SPI-M, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which advises the Government, said the country simply did not have enough “people and machines” to ramp up capacity, compared to other countries. “It’s the difference between cooking and catering,” he told the Telegraph. “We might have the brilliant minds but we don’t have the machines or the number of trained people to ramp this up properly. “We are trying to do things that are beyond any single research laboratory. We need more PCR machines which are expensive and need to be maintained. “We need the people trained to run them, even though in an ideal world they might never be needed. “South Korea have got warehouses full of testing kits and machines, and lots of people trained and ready to go. When Sars and Mers came along, they knew they needed it.

“Germany just appear to have been better prepared than us. It would have been a very difficult political decision to spend that kind of money on things that might never have been needed.” To increase capacity, Public Health England have enlisted an army of volunteers including university students to help laboratories, it emerged on Monday. Some will be paid for their work while others have offered their expertise for free. When the disease first emerged, the UK chose to use only one lab - Public Health England’s main facility at Colindale in north London. In recent weeks public health authorities have enlisted 11 more labs as well as universities and NHS hospitals. Greg Clark, the former Conservative business secretary who chairs the House of Commons science select committee, which is investigating the Government’s response to Covid-19, questioned why Britain had been so slow to bring in more laboratories to ramp up production. “Our strategy was to start with one lab then increase it to 12. I don’t know why we moved so slowly,” he said. “It’s not clear why we don’t have the testing capacity, and why we appear to be in a worse position than other countries on this.” Mr Clark also questioned why Public Health England only had 290 people working on contact tracing, unlike nations like South Korea where tracing infected people has been a key part of the strategy.