Hopes rise that 100,000 tests target will be hit

HOPES were revived last night for a mass testing programme that could pave a way out of the coronavirus lockdown.

After weeks of sluggish progress and false dawns, signs were finally emerging that testing will accelerate in the coming days.

Major health tech firms and top academics yesterday pledged to help the Government hit its ambitious target of testing 100,000 people each day by the end of the month. In a day of major advances:

US giant Thermo Fisher Scientific promised to produce thousands of ‘antigen’ testing kits – the type that diagnoses if someone currently has the virus;

Academics at Imperial College London and Cambridge University each unveiled rapid testing equipment that can process virus samples without using labs;

British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca said it will have a validated antibody test within a month that can be delivered on a mass scale by the end of May. Antibody tests tell if someone has had the virus in the past and whether they are likely to be immune.

The Government had previously identified nine companies that could supply antibody tests – and said it may order as many as 17.5million kits.

But this week officials admitted none of the tests had worked. So the development of a working antibody test by a major pharmaceutical firm is a huge boost.

Experts believe that, if used widely, it could eventually allow an early lifting of social distancing measures.

Professor Paul Hunter, infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, said last night: ‘If we are able to roll out a good quality antibody test and find that a substantial proportion of the population is immune, then we will also be able to relax the current restrictions knowing that the infection would not spread as rapidly.’

Mr Hancock last week appealed to businesses and universities to help the country hit its 100,000-a-day testing target.

Until now the UK has tested no more than 14,000 people on any single day – a far lower count than nations such as Germany, which has tested more than 70,000 a day and is expanding its capacity.

Mr Hancock has set up a ‘testing taskforce’ of more than 100 companies but it was only yesterday that solid progress was made. AstraZeneca, Cambridge University and GlaxoSmithKline have joined forces for a testing facility in Cambridge.

Tom Keith-Roach, of AstraZeneca UK, said the team is now confident of delivering an accurate antibody test in the coming weeks. He explained: ‘We are working to deliver a validated test by the beginning of May that we could then scale up by the end of the month.’

The team is also working on antigen testing – which will process 1,000 to 2,000 daily tests by mid-April and aim to ‘ramp up progressively’ to 30,000 in the first week of May.

He added: ‘I see an extraordinary kind of pulling-together, of collective effort from all of the stakeholders involved in delivering these solutions on behalf of the Government and the NHS.’

Mark Stevenson, of Thermo Fisher Scientific, said his firm could get the Government to its 100,000 antigen tests per day target.

Meanwhile, Imperial College London yesterday announced the development of lab-free Covid-19 test which delivers results in just over an hour.

The Government has already obtained 10,000 of the DnaNudge ‘Lab-in- Cartridge’ test with a view to securing far more if it is shown to be a success.

A Government adviser last night insisted he was very confident the 100,000a-day testing target would be hit within the next three weeks.

‘Extraordinary pulling-together’