![]() ![]() The biotechnology companies Roche Diagnostics, LabCorp and Thermo Fisher Scientific are among the top suppliers of commercial coronavirus RT-PCR kits. CDC-approved kits target regions on a gene that codes for the protein that makes the virus’s nucleocapsid, an envelope that houses its RNA. The primary difference from one kit to another is which coronavirus genes each test targets. First, a technician extracts viral genetic material called RNA-if it is present-from the sample and uses it to produce a complimentary strand of DNA that the RT-PCR technique amplifies, or makes thousands of copies of, to get a measurable result. “There’s a lot of hands-on work involved” in performing RT-PCR tests, Long says. The World Health Organization’s and CDC’s test kits both use this method, as do all of the kits the latter has approved to date. To determine whether a nasopharyngeal sample is positive for the coronavirus, biotechnicians use a technique known as reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, or RT-PCR. The Food and Drug Administration quickly issued a warning that no such tests have been authorized, and the companies halted sales of the kits, which had been priced at about $170 to $180 apiece. Recently, two health start-ups began marketing at-home collection kits that they claimed would allow patients to take their own samples and send them to labs for testing. The university plans to produce thousands more until availability begins to meet demand. Harris says the university produced 1,600 generic collection kits last weekend to distribute to local health providers free of charge to help fill the gap, adding that all such kits are pretty much the same. ![]() Shortages of swabs and reagents for collection kits were among the several roadblocks that stymied public health agencies’ ability to perform widespread testing in recent weeks, according to David Harris, who directs the biorepository at the University of Arizona. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” After a sample is collected, the swab goes into a liquid-filled tube for transport. ![]() “Once you place it in the back of the throat, it’s uncomfortable, but you can still breathe and talk,” he says. Scott Wesley Long, a clinical microbiologist who directs Houston Methodist Hospital’s diagnostic microbiology lab, says the swab is thin-less than three millimeters in diameter at its tip. Doing so involves placing a sterile swab at the back of a patient’s nasal passage, where it connects to the throat via the nasopharynx, for several seconds to absorb secretions. The first step in any coronavirus test is collecting a sample. But the basic process is the same nationwide. A sampling of state public health agencies in New York, California and Texas all referred Scientific American’s questions about such availability, as well as about where patients should go to get tested, to their respective coronavirus information pages. A New York Timesdatabase reports that at least 75,178 cases had been confirmed as positive by lab tests as of Thursday afternoon. The CDC’s own labs have tested 4,654 specimens, and public health laboratories have tested 98,576. public health laboratories had completed the CDC’s verification process and were offering tests. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. state, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. And biotech companies are ramping up production of test kits-but states are still struggling to meet demand.ĬOVID-19 testing is currently available in every U.S. Editor’s Note (4/6/20): This article was updated after publication with the information that the FDA has granted an emergency use authorization to a 15-minute coronavirus test created by Abbott Laboratories.Īs the new coronavirus explodes in cities across the U.S., public health agencies and hospitals are making testing-which was initially plagued by significant shortages-increasingly available.
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