COVID-19 tests, now a finger away after the UK plans to finger-prick tests.
The UK government is planning to millions of free coronavirus tests by just a finger-prick after successful secret trials.
As per a media report, the UK government is planning to roll out millions of free coronavirus antibody tests which will give instant results following finger-prick, post successful trials. Within 20 minutes of a person giving the test via a finger-prick, the result of the person will be made available. It will also detect whether the person has ever been exposed to the deadly virus or not. The Daily Telegraph in their report wrote that such tests are 98.6 percent accurate, in the secret trials held in June.
The finger prick test is called “AbC-19 lateral flow test:
Oxford’s Regius Professor of Medicine, Sir John Bell, who leads the British government’s antibody testing programme said,” This rapid test appears to be truly amazing, and it shows we can do it ourselves.” This test is called” AbC-19 lateral flow test” and can be rolled out for mass consumption by the end of this year. It has been developed by the UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC) along with Oxford University and UK diagnostics including York-based Abingdon Health.
AbC-19 programme done in 10 weeks says, Dr Chris Hand:
The leader of the UK-RTC and chairman of Abingdon Health, Dr Chris Hand, revealed the testing procedure and the sanctity of the results. He said,” We’ve had two shifts of R&D personnel working day and night, seven days a week. This sort of development programme would normally take a year. We’ve done it in 10 weeks. The test results were found to be 98.6 percent accurate and that’s very good news.”
After the finger-prick test, in just 20 minutes, it will reveal if the person has tested positive displaying two pink lines in the machine. The UK government is routeing these tests on many levels and hopes to roll it out as soon as possible.
