Mass virus blood test for millions
Results show who’s immune – so they can return to work
‘Ambulance crews are sitting ducks’ ‘We do not have sufficient capacity’
A SIMPLE blood test to identify whether someone has had coronavirus could soon be available to millions.
Health officials said yesterday scientists are ‘days away’ from approving the test, described by Boris Johnson as a ‘game changer’.
It will be used initially to assess frontline staff including doctors, nurses, care home workers and teachers. Testing positive would indicate someone is virtually immune from catching the disease again in the short term, allowing them to work safely.
Over time the test could be made available at high street chemists and online, allowing millions to check themselves.
The NHS has purchased 3.5million of the tests and is ordering millions more.
However, the breakthrough was played down last night by chief medical officer Chris Whitty.
He said the priority for the NHS remained increasing the testing of health workers showing possible symptoms of the disease.
Limited capacity has meant testing has so far been focused on hospital patients showing signs of the coronavirus.
The failure to increase testing capacity more quickly has hindered the fight against the epidemic by forcing many NHS staff with cold and flu symptoms to self-isolate even though they may not have the disease.
With every available health worker needed to tackle an expected surge in cases in the coming weeks, NHS chiefs say they cannot afford to have key staff off unnecessarily.
Saffron Cordery, of NHS Provid‘when ers, said: ‘The immediate focus is on who has Covid-19 now, and the reality is that despite the push to expand testing, it’s not going to be sufficient to cover patients and a significant number of the NHS’s 1.2million staff.’
Yesterday it emerged that up to 15 per cent of ambulance staff are self-isolating after showing symptoms of coronavirus.
The GMB trade union, which released the figures, said crews were being left as ‘sitting ducks’.
At five of 11 ambulance trusts in England and Wales, almost 2,500 of 22,000 staff were absent at the beginning of the week. In London, the hardest-hit area, 850 of 5,800 staff were self-isolating – around 15 per cent of the workforce.
Downing Street said yesterday 6,491 people were tested for coronavirus on Tuesday, up from 5,605 the previous day.
As a new testing facility in Milton Keynes came on stream yesterday, No 10 added it hopes to hit 10,000 a day next week and 25,000 a day by the second week of April.
But ministers have faced questions over why the Government has not acted faster. South Korea, which prioritised mass testing, was one of the first countries to get the virus under control.
France is now testing 9,000 a day and has said it will reach 20,000 a day by the weekend.
Speaking at a news conference at Downing Street yesterday, Professor Whitty said: ‘We would like to be able to test NHS and other critical workers who are self-isolating but are currently not being tested because we do not have sufficient capacity.’
He added a lack of testing capacity was a ‘global problem’ driven by unprecedented demand.
In the Commons, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said testing should have been ramped up weeks ago
the Government were first warned about the threat of a global pandemic’. Mr Johnson said testing had been ‘a priority of this Government ever since the crisis was obviously upon us, for weeks and weeks’.
Health sources said a new ‘anti
body’ test that will allow people to tell if they have had the disease could change the situation dramatically.
Professor Sharon Peacock, of the National Infection Service, told MPs 3.5million tests had been bought and would be available in the ‘near future’.
She added a small number of the tests – which show whether an individual has antibodies for Covid-19 – would be tested in a laboratory before being distributed via Amazon and chemists such as Boots.
Asked whether they would be available in days rather than weeks or months, she said: ‘Absolutely.’ But Professor Whitty cautioned it was still being evaluated, adding: ‘The only thing worse than no test is a bad test.’
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