According to a release, the Food and Drug Administration has identified this recall as Class I, which is the most serious type of recall and indicates that “use of these devices may cause serious injuries or death.”
These strips are used by patients taking warfarin to help determine the patients’ international normalized ratio, which doctors and patients then use to decide whether the dose is appropriate. Roche Diagnostics, the strips’ manufacturer, issued a recall in September 2018; the test strips distributed by Terrific Care and Medex, however, were not labeled or authorized for sale in the United States and were therefore not included in that original recall. According to the release, the strips in this recall, which was initiated Dec. 21, 2018, were purchased by Terrific Care and Medex from an unknown source and then distributed in the United States. On Jan. 28, 2019, Terrific Care sent an Urgent Medical Device Recall Notification Letter to customers.
The full recall is described on the FDA website.