Quick results in tests

Aussie breakthrough

WORLD- FIRST Australian research has developed a test that can identify positive coronavirus cases in only 20 minutes.

The discovery could help the effort to limit the spread of the virus by identifying patients and their close contacts more quickly.

The research team, led by Monash University, developed a simple way to detect the presence of coronavirus antibodies in the blood.

While not suited to being a diagnostic test for those who have only recently contracted COVID-19, the blood test takes only 20 minutes to detect when a person has had the virus and mounted a response or recovered from it, significantly improving populationwide health efforts.

The study findings, published on Friday, could help high-risk countries with population screening, case identification, contact tracing, confirming vaccine efficacy during clinical trials, and vaccine distribution.

Simon Corrie, senior lecturer in chemical engineering at Monash University, said the findings were exciting for health care teams racing to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“This simple assay, based on commonly used blood typing infrastructure and manufactured at scale, can be rolled out rapidly across Australia and beyond,” Dr Corrie said.

“This test can be used in any lab that has blood typing infrastructure, which is extremely common across the world.”

Researchers collaborated with clinicians at Monash Health to collect blood samples from people recently infected with COVID-19.

The experts said with funding and commercial support, the test could be rolled out in as little as six months.