FDA approves 5-minute Coronavirus test by Abbott Labs

Los Angeles Times ^ | 03/29/2020 | By MICHELLE FAY CORTEZ

[SeekAndFind]

Abbott Laboratories is unveiling a coronavirus test that can tell if someone is infected in as little as five minutes, and is so small and portable it can be used in almost any healthcare setting.

The medical-device maker plans to supply 50,000 tests a day starting Wednesday, said John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics.

The molecular test looks for fragments of the coronavirus genome, which can quickly be detected when present at high levels. A thorough search to definitively rule out an infection can take up to 13 minutes, he said.

Abbott has received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “for use by authorized laboratories and patient care settings,” the company said Friday.

The U.S. has struggled to supply enough tests to detect the virus, even as the outbreak threatens to overwhelm hospitals in New York, California, Washington and other areas. After initially restricting testing to high-risk people, and problems with a test designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. regulators have rushed out diagnostics made by the world’s leading commercial-testing companies.

“This is really going to provide a tremendous opportunity for front-line caregivers, those having to diagnose a lot of infections, to close the gap with our testing,” Frels said. “A clinic will be able to turn that result around quickly, while the patient is waiting.”

The technology builds on Illinois-based Abbott’s ID Now platform, the most common point-of-care test currently available in the U.S., with more than 18,000 units spread across the country. It is widely used to detect influenza, strep throat and respiratory syncytial virus, a common bug that causes cold-like symptoms.

[SeekAndFind]

Here’s how the test would work:

* Take a swab from the nose or the back of the throat,

* Then mix it with a chemical solution that breaks open the virus and releases its RNA.

* The mixture is inserted into an ID Now system, a small box weighing just under seven pounds that has the technology to identify and amplify select sequences of the coronavirus genome and ignore contamination from other viruses.

[familyop]

The more testing, the better. This nurse was very ill for 26 days (see do the math).

Colorado nurse contracts coronavirus: ‘A lot of my friends are nurses at the hospital and they’re very worried’
https://www.foxnews.com/media/colorado-nurse-coronavirus-hospital-worried

[KierkegaardMAN]

Mandatory testing, mandatory vaccinations,
mandatory check points... Land of the once free, home of the enslaved.

[dp0622]

How many posts would be on the board if we put up one for every person that had mild symptoms or got better from bad ones?

10s of thousands??

That you guys continue to post the exceptions proves the rule the rest of us see.

Which is reality.

[OJDIDIT2]

I just heard on CNN the Hydroxychloroquine has been approve by FDA to treat Covid 19. Good news if true

[Hattie]

Forget the testing; anyone who has 99.6 or more will automatically be counted Coronavirus.

[gibsonguy]

Skeptical, a Freeper who actually watches CNN ? Doubt it.

[null and void]

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

The false positive rate was 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.

[jdsteel]

These quick tests and Hydroxychloroquine are freaking game changer.

In an amazingly short span of time almost every American will be tested. Almost every American with the Kung Flu will have Hydroxychloroquine avail to them.

BTW...a month or 2 will be amazingly short.

[Jane Long]

🙌🏻

[WildHighlander57]

OJDIDIT2 wrote:

“I just heard on CNN the Hydroxychloroquine has been approve by FDA to treat Covid 19. Good news if true.”

Hope so also.

Prayers UP!!!

[familyop]

About 140,000 of these cases appeared over the past couple of weeks. Let’s see if the medicos can get enough pumps to plug in to many of them and many more to come.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology

United States

Cases 142,402

Deaths 2,497

Recoveries 4,767

[Enterprise]

It’s April 12 now. Do you know of any reporting on the accuracy of these test kits by now?