Britain and drugmaker Roche on Wednesday supplied reassurances that the accuracy of diagnostic tests utilized to detect COVID-19 was unlikely to be impacted by a quickly-spreading mutant strain of the virus.
Public Health England stated that fast lateral flow tests becoming deployed in the country’s mass-testing programme can determine the variant.
Separately, Roche stated neither its molecular test for COVID-19 nor a mixture COVID-19/Influenza molecular test utilized on its higher-throughput diagnostic machines was most likely to be impacted by the mutations.
The purpose, the Swiss enterprise stated, was that the mutations occurred on unique regions of the new coronavirus than the regions that are targeted for the tests.
Roche also stated that 5 other tests it sells – Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Test, Elecsys SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Test and Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S Test as effectively as its SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen Test and SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antibody Test – have been also unlikely to be eluded by the variant.
Roche stated that it would conduct additional tests on the fast antibody test that it tends to make in partnership with South Korea’s SD Biosensor, just to make confident.
“We will share our findings, as soon as these indications have concluded,” the Basel-primarily based enterprise stated.
The swiftly spreading mutation has prompted deep issues in Britain and beyond that it will make fighting the pandemic even more hard as infections accelerate. Nations such as Switzerland have announced a series of travel bans and restrictions aimed at assisting limit the spread of the strain outdoors Britain.
Vaccine makers such as Pfizer and BioNTech are also investigating regardless of whether the mutant virus that emerged in Britain could elude their shots, and say they require about two weeks to make a determination. They say they count on them to nevertheless work, but stated the information demands to bear that out.
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