Otago Covid test method used overseas

DUNEDIN: Otago University researchers who published new ways to process Covid19 tests say their work is already being used in other countries.

Biologist Tim Hore and his team finetuned a simple method to separate virus genetic cells from patients’ nasal samples — an important step to see if Covid19 is present.

‘‘When something like a pandemic comes along, by having a small number of companies producing all of the chemicals, then the supply chain’s going to fail.

‘‘So in order to have resilient systems, you need to have ways to do it yourself.’’

At the beginning of the pandemic, the test kits used to diagnose Covid19 were becoming scarce, as demand soared for reagents, he said.

However, the researchers found these reagents could easily be made using New Zealand materials.

‘‘As the Covid pandemic came upon us and places started running out of reagents in order to do diagnostic testing, they were looking for ways that they could cheaply continue diagnostic teaching and ours was one of the ways this could be addressed.’’ Dr Hore and his team used microscopic magnetic beads to purify patients’ nasal swab samples — and once the method was simplified and finetuned, it was published online for free use.

He said medical laboratories and researchers in New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom and parts of Europe had already started using their work.