The United States will boost its stockpile of at-home COVID-19 tests, ordering more than 100 million tests from domestic manufacturers, the White House said on Thursday, but warned it was a short-term solution Read More
With cases of sexually transmitted infections growing, researchers hope self-tests — made popular by the pandemic — could stem the tide.
Global cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been on the rise in some countries. Even the COVID-19 pandemic — which locked down life in many ways — hasn’t halted the trend. In April, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the first year of the pandemic saw 133,945 cases of syphilis, a 52% increase since 2016 (see ‘Resurgence’).
And this is probably an underestimate, the CDC says, given that health-care clinics had to limit in-person visits at the start of the pandemic, and STI surveillance programmes found their resources shifted elsewhere. The situation sparked a push for at-home tests for syphilis and other STIs.
University of Texas at Dallas bioengineers in collaboration with EnLiSense LLC have designed a wearable sensor that can detect two key biomarkers of infection in human sweat, a significant step toward making it possible for users to receive early warnings of infections such as COVID-19 and influenza.
Researchers have shown a new compound delivered in a nasal spray is highly effective in preventing and treating COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant in mice.
A new study conducted by UW school of medicine showed that at-home flu testing results are comparable to clinincal testing.
The study was conducted on 600 Seattle-area residents participated in the 2020 study between February and the end of May. The researchers determined that sensitivity and specificity of the self-test were comparable with those of influenza rapid diagnostic tests used in clinical settings. False-negative results were more common when the self-test was administered after 72 hours of the appearance of symptoms, but were not related to inadequate swab collection or severity of illness.
What brands of at-home tests are we not suppose to use and why?
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ACON Laboratories “Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Self-Testing)”.This test is packaged in a dark-blue box. This at-home test has not been authorized, cleared or approved by the FDA for distribution and use in the United States.
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SD Biosensor Inc. “STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test”. This test may be packaged in a white and magenta box. Officials at the FDA are concerned that this at-home test has a risk of false results when using the test.
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Celltrion DiaTrust “COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test”. The green-and-white packaged tests. This at-home test has not been authorized, cleared or approved but the FDA for distribution and use in the US.
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Many Free At-home tests still not claimed.
According to AP, more than half of the 500 Million free at-home tests provided by the U.S. Government remain unclaimed.
“COVIDtests.gov received over 45 million orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for the packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.” Dr. Tom Inglesby, testing adviser to the COVID-19 response team, told The Associated Press
The tests that are being sent out have roughly 6 months expiry unless CDC gives extenstion.
If you have not claimed one, claim it. You will have a buffer if another variation of Covid-19 picks up.
What kind of at-home test is this?
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new blood-clotting test that uses only a single drop of blood and a smartphone vibration motor and camera. The system includes a plastic attachment that holds a tiny cup beneath the phone’s camera
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have created a simple Covid-19 testing lab that fits into a backpack providing a cheap and effective solution for low income or remote areas.
This week there was a chip that was developed by researchers in Taiwan that bridged the gap between Antigen and PCR testing at-home by providing a faster but reliable results to testers. Why should we be left behind? here come the University of Washington Researchers along with Professor Barry Lutz who have developed a new test for COVID-19 that combines the speed of over-the-counter antigen tests with the accuracy of PCR tests that are processed in medical labs and hospitals.
“We designed the test to be low-cost and simple enough that it could be used anywhere,” said Barry Lutz, a UW associate professor of bioengineering and investigator with the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine. “We hope that the low cost will make high-performance testing more accessible locally and around the world.”
So how long does this test take to give results?
“This test operates at a constant temperature, so it eliminates the time to heat and cool and gives results in about 30 minutes,” said Lutz.
How does this test work?
Tests based on PCR or polymerase chain reaction are highly accurate, a key limitation is that PCR tests require dozens of cycles of heating and cooling to detect genetic material in a sample.This test developed by the UW team sidesteps this issue by relying on a PCR-like method known as RT-LAMP, which doesn’t have the same stringent temperature-cycling requirements.
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