2-hour test that doesn’t need to be checked in a lab
A TWO-hour test for coronavirus could help to free up hospital beds if the flu season coincides with a second wave of the virus this winter.
The game-changing British-designed test has slashed the average time it takes to get a result from the current 26 hours.
Used for only ten days at a teaching hospital in Cambridge, it prevented 11 bays needing to be closed by quickly giving patients the allclear. The average time people spent on coronavirus ‘holding’ wards was almost halved.
The ‘Samba II’ test, which uses nose and throat swabs from patients, does not need a hospital laboratory.
Instead a nearby machine capable of processing ten to 15 tests a day produces a rapid result in the form of a single, horizontal grey line – rather like a pregnancy test.
Professor Ravi Gupta, from the University of Cambridge, who led a study on the test after it was introduced last month at the city’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital, said: ‘The backlog of routine operations and screenings as a result of the pandemic is a huge issue and must be resolved ahead of winter, when the NHS will face even more pressure from other infections like norovirus and influenza.
‘Rapidly testing admissions at the point of care is essential for reducing Covid-19 transmission in hospitals, speeding up access to urgent care and allowing safe discharge to care homes. It could make all the difference in a few months’ time.’
The 2.4 hours for the test to return a result compares to a turnaround time of up to four days in some hospitals. However this is only the average time based on 149 patients’ results, and some have come back even more quickly – in some cases within 90 minutes.
Comparing 913 people given the £30 Samba II test over ten days to 599 who took the old swab test, researchers found that the time in a ‘holding’ ward fell from 58.5 hours to less than 30 hours on average.
The risk of an overcrowded A&E was reduced, with the test helping to move patients to a ward almost six hours quicker, in just over 24 hours. The Samba II was originally developed for screening HIV in Africa.