Imagine a self-administered coronavirus test, done at home, with results available in minutes, instead of the days or sometimes weeks people are currently waiting.
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It took 40 years to convert the idea of HIV self-tests into a widely available test. But despite false starts — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in April such tests would be available within weeks — the coronavirus version of the technology could be ready for production by the end of the year.
Perhaps we're more concerned about coronavirus than we were about AIDS, considering we didn't care so much if gays were dying.
U.K.-based diagnostics company Mologic [...] is working on a self-test aimed at poor countries.
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In the Mologic test, people brush their gums to produce a sample, which then goes into a capsule where the viral material is extracted and inactivated. The fluid can then be dripped onto something that looks like a pregnancy test, with the result available a few minutes later.
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Mologic is now working to improve different prototypes for its self-test that could go into mass production by May 2021.
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The company has received support from Wellcome Trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and U.K. Aid to offset the cost of research and development and make the test available at cost for poor countries.
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Getting regulators around the world to license them and then ensuring they are manufactured in high enough numbers to be widely available may be bigger hurdles.
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The WHO’s rapid diagnostic test standard requires the test to correctly identify at least 70 percent of the people who have the virus. And while that is lower than the 95 percent rate achieved by the standard nasal test known as PCR, which must be administered by medical professionals, the self-tests could catch infected people more quickly.
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Mologic says the company is willing to show others how they can manufacture their tests.
