Its speed and portability can help front-line workers battle this pandemic head on."Īs the spread of the novel coronavirus slows, mass testing will play a key role in helping countries gradually emerge from economy-crushing lockdowns, say public health experts. "The instrument allows immediate access to where patient testing is needed most, taking the fight to the front lines in a variety of health care settings," Moore said, "like drive-through testing facilities or airports. The platform is a wedge-shaped device that looks like a futuristic alarm clock and weighs about seven pounds, portable enough that it could be used far beyond hospitals. There are already 18,000 ID NOW devices in ERs, doctors’ offices, and urgent-care clinics around the country, helping to quickly diagnose respiratory diseases. The test runs on the ID NOW platform, which is the most common molecular point-of-care instrument in the country, according to Norman Moore, head of scientific affairs at Abbott. On March 27, the health care giant Abbott Laboratories got the FDA’s blessing for a coronavirus test that set a new standard for speed: It shows positive results in five minutes and negatives in 13. The company started shipping tests this week and will produce millions more over the next few months. There are 5,000 GeneXpert devices already in use in the US and 23,000 around the world, which were originally designed to diagnose diseases like tuberculosis and flu. Persing said the main use case for the Cepheid device will be at crowded hospitals that need to quickly test patients and health care workers to minimize risk to other people. A PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, test makes a diagnosis by looking for the unique genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. The Covid-19 diagnostic relies on real-time PCR, like most others in use now, just faster. From there the machine takes over, using microfluidics-tiny plumbing-to guide the chemical reactions along 45 minutes later, the device reports its result to a connected computer. Then they pop the cartridge into the GeneXpert, a sleek gray box that looks like an external hard drive array. ![]() The health care worker then puts the sample in liquid in a specimen transfer tube and uses a pipette to move it into a small tube in the cartridge that holds the testing reagents, or ingredients. ![]() ![]() While most other systems require a health care worker to unceremoniously insert a cotton swab deep into the sensitive parts of the patient's nose or throat, Cepheid's system can also work with a sample retrieved through a more gentle nasal wash (think: neti pot), said Cepheid chief medical officer David Persing, though it remains to be seen whether people will actually prefer that. The test comes as a $35 flip-top plastic cartridge, about the size of a roll of half dollars, that plugs into the company’s existing GeneXpert devices. On March 20, molecular diagnostics company Cepheid received the first FDA approval for a fast, point-of-care Covid-19 test.
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