The United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has issued an Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for Abbott’s owned coronavirus test tool, that delivers positive results within five minutes, and negative results within 13 minutes.
According to Illinois-based medical device maker, Abbott Labs, the test tool will be made available from this week, as it expects to ramp up manufacturing to deliver 50,000 tests per day.
Abbott Labs has it that the test tool will run on the company’s ID NOW platform, providing rapid results in a wide range of healthcare settings such as physicians’ offices, urgent care clinics and hospital emergency departments.
BREAKING: We’re launching a test that can detect COVID-19 in as little as 5 minutes—bringing rapid testing to the frontlines. https://t.co/LqnRpPpqMM pic.twitter.com/W8jyN2az8G
— Abbott (@AbbottNews) March 27, 2020
Speaking on the development, FDA Commissioner, Steve Hahn, said, “I am pleased that the FDA authorized Abbott’s point-of-care test yesterday. This is big news and will help get more of these tests out in the field rapidly.
“We know how important it is to get point-of-care tests out in the field quickly. These tests that can give results quickly can be a game changer in diagnosing COVID-19.”
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On his part, Robert B. Ford, the president and chief operating officer of Abbot, stated, “The COVID-19 pandemic will be fought on multiple fronts, and a portable molecular test that offers results in minutes adds to the broad range of diagnostic solutions needed to combat this virus.”
He continued, “With rapid testing on ID NOW, healthcare providers can perform molecular point-of-care testing outside the traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots.”
A brief description of the device: The ID NOW device is small, lightweight (6.6 pounds) and portable (the size of a small toaster), and uses molecular technology, which is valued by clinicians and the scientific community for its high degree of accuracy.
Meanwhile, in less than three months since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus on a global scale, there are over 650,000 reported cases around the world as of Saturday, March 28, 2020.
While over 30,000 people have died from the pandemic, there are more than 139,000 people who have recovered from the infectious disease.
