Tests for COVID-19 that reveal results in minutes soon to be provided across the world

Tests for COVID-19 that show at-the-scene results in 15 to 30 minutes are about to be set out across the world, saving many thousands of lives and slowing the pandemic in both poor and rich countries, regardless of the speed of the epidemic’s spread.

The Guardian reported that 120 million of these new tests from two major companies will be released to the world, to low- and middle-income countries. The new tests will look like simple pregnancy tests indicating with two blue lines positive coronavirus infection. One test has received emergency approval from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the other is expected to get it shortly. The two companies claim their tests are about 97% accurate, but that is in optimal conditions. In real-world conditions, only 90% accuracy has been determined. 

The quick, easy, and professional tests will allow health workers to do more tests in a short period of time.

The article states that “wealthy countries that have signed up for the Access to COVID tools initiative (ACT accelerator), as the UK has, will also be able to order the tests. The initiative was launched in March by the WHO, the European Commission, the Gates Foundation, and the French government”. There is relatively little testing in most low- and middle-income countries at present; for example, while North America tests 395 people per 100,000 inhabitants daily and Europe tests 243, Africa tests fewer than 16 – and most of those are in Morocco, Kenya, and Senegal.

Rapid antigen tests are available for sale online, but these are the first to meet the WHO’s specifications while some tests have not been approved. Spain had to send back two of these rapid tests received from unlicensed companies in China in March because they were said to be faulty.

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Source: www.theguardian.com