A United States (US) based laboratory, Abbott Laboratories, has unveiled a portable test which could tell if someone has COVID-19 in about five minutes.
The company said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given it emergency authorization to begin making the test available to healthcare providers as early as next week.
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The test which is small, lightweight and about the size of a small toaster uses molecular technology, which is valued by clinicians and the scientific community for its high degree of accuracy.
“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,” said Abbott president and chief operating officer Robert B Ford.
Ford also said that the test will help healthcare providers to perform molecular point-of-care testing outside the traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots.
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The test has not been cleared or approved by the FDA, and has only been authorized for emergency use by approved labs and healthcare providers, the company said.
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in the US has increased to more than 100000 on Saturday.