90-minute portable test a ‘game changer’
Rollout begins for ‘highly accurate’ device to be used in care homes, schools, arts venues and offices
A “HIGHLY accurate” portable coronavirus test that can deliver a result in 90 minutes has been developed by UK scientists.
Designed by Imperial College London and its start-up Dnanudge, the devices are being rolled out across a handful of major NHS trusts after successful trials on patients and staff.
However, its backers hope the test’s most potent use could be in the community, quickly telling people their Covid status before they visit theatres, pubs and football matches.
The simple-to-use “lab-in-cartridge” system was recently used to test the London Symphony Orchestra before its performance at this year’s Proms.
It also promises to be a game changer for Covid safety in care homes, allowing swabs to be analysed on site by non-clinical staff.
It involves a small paediatrics swab fitted into a circular processing unit which in turn sits into a rectangular DNA analyser, about the size of a Game Boy or old fashioned mobile phone.
Published in The Lancet Microbe, the paper revealing the device comes as ministers grapple to bolster England’s overstretched testing system while working out how to lay on the millions of extra tests a day promised by Boris Johnson.
The Government recently placed an order for 5.8million Dnanudge kits.
The device was used to test 386 NHS staff and patients from April 10 to May 12, with the results compared against the NHS standard laboratory machines.
The technology was found to have 94 per cent sensitivity – a measure of how well a test gives a positive result for people who have disease, and an indication of how likely a test will produce false negative results.
It also showed 100 per cent specificity, which is a measure of a test’s ability to give a negative result for people who do not have the disease, and is an indication of the likelihood of false positive results.
Chris Toumazou, the Regis Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial, said: “The Dnanudge test was developed as a lab-free, on-the-spot consumer service that can be delivered at scale, so we clearly believe it offers very significant potential in terms of mass population testing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The platform is well suited to testing in primary care and community settings with potential for use in nonhealthcare settings such as care homes, schools, transport hubs, offices, and, to help bring the arts back, in theatres and venues.
“However, further studies of realworld effectiveness in non-clinical settings would be required prior to widespread deployment.”
Prof Graham Cooke, a practising clinician and the lead author on the study, said that while the system might need some “interface” modifications to be suitable for home use, he added: “There is nothing in the technology that means it couldn’t be done at home.”
However, he said that, currently, there would not be sufficient supplies of the kits to answer the Prime Minister’s “Moonshot” target to conduct 10million tests a day by next spring.
He also suggested that the kits would be outside the financial reach of all households for the time being.
“This is a really elegant piece of engineering that solves a problem that we’ve been trying to tackle for a long time,” added Prof Cooke. “Many tests involve a trade-off between speed and accuracy, but this test manages to achieve both.”
The technology has already received approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, but it will be up to health officials to decide whether to approve it for use as part of the national test-andtrace system.
Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “The point-of-use test described in the paper looks to be a promising development towards improving availability of tests for Covid-19.
“This is a test for the virus RNA and not a test for antibodies so would be a replacement for the standard PCR tests currently done on nose and throat swabs.
“The reported sensitivity and specificity of the test look very good and are sufficient for its use in diagnosis.”
‘This is a really elegant piece of engineering that solves a problem we’ve been trying to tackle for a long time’