Saliva based rapid test for COVID-19 antigen

A saliva based test for COVID-19 providing results directly to patients in minutes is being developed as a result of a new collaboration between Luas Diagnostics and the University of Birmingham.

Luas Diagnostics of Guildford, Surrey, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Birmingham to collaborate on the development of a rapid, Point-of-Care test for COVID-19 antigen. This will enable COVID-19 testing to be performed in locations such as remote testing centres, care homes, airports and workplaces, in addition to more conventional clinical settings. The goal is to expedite contact tracing and patient isolation, thus helping to reduce the spread of infection and contain further outbreaks.

Brendan Farrell, CEO of Luas Diagnostics, commented: “Currently, most testing for COVID-19 is conducted in centralised laboratories with relatively lengthy times from sample acquisition to result. This both delays and increases the difficulty of tracing the contacts of those who test positive, allowing further proliferation of infection. Our goal is to develop a true, simple to use, near-patient test yielding results in minutes.”

Employing Luas Diagnostics expertise in electrochemistry, the COVID-19 test will run on a small, low-cost, portable device, providing results in minutes. The eHealth enabled device, similar to a glucose meter, will not only provide rapid results at the site where the test is performed, allowing immediate patient management, but will use Bluetooth to transmit the results directly to a Smartphone App and a secure cloud-based server which can then be accessed by health care professionals.

The test will use a saliva sample, as recent studies have shown that the use of oral fluid samples has significant advantages over a nasopharyngeal swab. The sensitivity of saliva samples is better than that of swabs, non-invasive and simple to collect , making it well suited to testing at remote sites.

The lead investigator at the University of Birmingham, Professor Tim Dafforn stated: “I am looking forward to working with Luas Diagnostics on the challenge of developing a rapid antigen test for COVID-19 which can be used with minimal training at remote sites. This rapid testing capability would enable better understanding of the spread of the coronavirus, helping all of us as we learn to live within the new normal.”