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Thousands of diabetics were put at risk of a dangerous drop in blood sugar levels from faulty blood-insulin measuring equipment.
New strip and meter packs to test for blood sugar levels were distributed by Roche a few weeks ago to about 12,600 New Zealanders.
But testers found the Accu-Chek Performa was giving diabetics higher blood glucose level readings than other readers.
Both the Government's drug-buying agency Pharmac, which provides the meters, and multinational drug company Roche, which makes them, have warned diabetics of the risk of injecting themselves with too much insulin after taking the wrong readings.
Pharmac's medical director Peter Moodie said Roche would exchange Performa test strips for Advantage test strips free of charge.
Doctors had heard anecdotal accounts of the meters reading higher than usual, and a Christchurch physician tested 20 of his colleagues, confirming the fault, Dr Moodie said.
The other Government-funded blood glucose measuring strips and meters - Optium or Optium Xceed (supplied by Medica Pacifica) and Accu-Chek Advantage (supplied by Roche Diagnostics) - were not affected. "It is good that we found this now, rather than later when there were 80,000 of them out there," he said.
Roche Diagnostics spokeswoman Roz Vickerman said though the results were higher than expected, they were still within internationally accepted safety guidelines.
The meters had been distributed to about 12,600 people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, she said.
The company was recalibrating the diagnostic strips, a process expected to take about 12 weeks.
"Roche Diagnostics has advised customers and healthcare professionals that the Accu-Chek Performa meter will report around 10 to 15 per cent higher glucose values than the Accu-Chek Advantage system," she said.
Diabetes specialist Dr Brandon Orr-Walker said the potentially high sugar readings could be misleading for a few people with a low risk and some could develop hypoglycaemia if they took too much insulin.
He considered it unlikely given users had already been warned to take care with the readings from the Accu-Check Performa, which would be higher than in the past.
Diabetics would still have their old testers to use in the meantime while the meters were re-programmed.
