On Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFA) said it has approved the first COVID-19 self-testing kit for home use that provides results within 30 minutes.
This single-use test is made by Lucira Health. It can be given as an emergency use authorisation by their health care provider for home use with self-collected nasal swab samples for individuals that are of age 14 and above. Anyone in this age slab and wants to check if they are COVID-19 positive or not can do so via this kit, the FDA said.
While COVID-19 diagnostic tests have been authorised for at-home collection, this is the first test kit ever that can be fully self-administered and provide results at home, said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
The kit can also be used at hospitals, but if the examinee is less than 14 years of age, then his samples should be collected by a healthcare provider, the health regulator said.
Although a recent string of positive news from Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc on their potential vaccines has raised hopes in combating the disease, testing still is a key factor in controlling the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, India has continued the unbroken trend of the daily new recoveries outpacing the daily new additions for more than 1.5 months. The country also reported less than 50,000 new daily cases for the eleventh continuous day.
44,739 COVID-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours against just 38,617 newly detected cases. This translates to a net reduction of 6,122 in the Active Caseload which now stands at 4,46,805. The active caseload as on date comprises merely 5.01 per cent of all COVID-19 cases.
Share
Tweet
