Coronavirus pandemic | New test can give result in 30 minutes, Oxford scientists claim

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Scientists at the Oxford University have claimed to have developed a rapid testing technology for the novel coronavirus that is capable of giving results in just 30 minutes.

"The new test is much faster and does not need a complicated instrument,” the scientists said in a statement.

According to scientists, the previous viral RNA tests took one and a half to two hours to give a result. However, the research team has developed a new test, based on a technique which is capable of giving results in just half an hour – over three times faster than the current method, they said.

The team of researchers at the Oxford’s Engineering Science Department and the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research (OSCAR) was led by Professor Zhanfeng Cui and Professor Wei Huang.

“The beauty of this new test lies in the design of the viral detection that can specifically recognize SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) RNA and RNA fragments,” said Professor Wei Huang in the statement.

He further said that the test had “built-in checks to prevent false positives or negatives and the results have been highly accurate.”

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The scientists termed the technology “very sensitive”. From this, they meant that patients in the early stages of infection may be identified sooner, potentially helping reduce the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The technology was also claimed to be potentially useful in rural areas or community healthcare centres.

“The technology only requires a simple heat-block which maintains a constant temperature for RNA reverse transcription and DNA amplification, and the results can be read by the naked eye. This makes it potentially useful in rural area or community healthcare centres,” they said.

The technology has been validated with real clinical samples at Shenzhen Luohu People’s Hospital in China. The hospital applied the rapid detection kits on 16 clinic samples, including eight positives and eight negatives, which were confirmed by conventional RT-PCR methods and other clinical evidence. The test results using the rapid detection kits were all successful, claimed the scientists.

The scientists are now developing an integrated device for testing at clinics, airports or the home.