Why is the government buying Covid tests without evidence they work? Ravindra Gupta and Dami Collier
As clinical researchers, we searched for information about the UK's new 90-minute tests - but found no data about their effectiveness
Many of us working in NHS hospitals welcomed the news earlier this week that the government had purchased 90-minute Covid-19 tests. Rapid swab tests, called LamPORE, and 5,000 machines, supplied by DnaNudge, will soon be available in adult care settings and laboratories. If they're effective, they could allow for rapid, on-the-spot testing. But there's no publicly available data about the accuracy of these tests or how they perform, raising concerns about why the government has endorsed - and purchased - them.
The lab-free testing machine from DnaNudge is potentially exciting. The government has placed a 161m order for these machines, which are currently being evaluated on saliva. If they work, people could be tested for Covid-19 without having to take the nose or throat swab that many find unpleasant. This has particular advantages in children, though it has a low throughput - each machine can complete only a maximum of 15 tests a day. The developers of the LamPORE swab test say they can complete up to 15,000 tests a day, although no real-world data is publicly available.
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