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A new £ 500 million funding package to support trials of a 20-minute coronavirus test has been hailed by the health secretary as a “major step forward” in the fight against COVID-19.
Matt Hancock told Sky News that the government wants to “go the extra mile” when it comes to mass testing of the virus.
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“Being able to expand mass testing with these new technologies is a big positive step in our battle against the virus,” he told the #KayBurley program.
“If you think about it, a combination of everyone doing social distancing and then testing to find out where the virus is is our best way to avoid having to do local lockdowns and our best way to keep the virus under control.”
Hancock said some of the money will also go toward efforts to explore the benefits of repeatedly testing people for the virus, with a new community-wide population retest trial to be launched in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Existing trials in Southampton and Hampshire, using a swab-free saliva test and a 20-minute rapid test, will be expanded through the new funding.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said saliva-based tests will be used for the Salford pilot, which will involve the city council and other local partners.
A select number of residents will be invited to a weekly test, and the pilot will conduct up to 250 tests per day.
Initial focus will be on Salford’s high-traffic areas, such as commercial areas, public services, transportation, and faith spaces.
Its goal is to identify positive cases of coronavirus early, even for those without or without symptoms, so that people can isolate themselves.
The results will inform how repeat periodic community testing could be scaled up across the country.
The second phase of a no-swab saliva test pilot will begin in Southampton this week.
You will see a weekly test model tested with over 2,100 students and staff at four schools.
The work is led by an association of the University of Southampton, Southampton City Council and the NHS.
Meanwhile, the pilot of a 20-minute rapid coronavirus test will be expanded “to further explore the applications of mobile testing in different settings” in Hampshire, the DHSC said.
The funds will also be used to expand the capacity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests currently in use in the UK.
Hancock also told Sky News that the general testing regimen was working “well,” even though some people were directed to centers more than 100 miles away.
He said this problem was part of the reason the government was investing in 20-minute trial tests.
“At the moment, the system works well. Of course there are operational challenges from time to time, but it works well,” he told Kay Burley.
“And we are finding a growing proportion of people in the country who have coronavirus and testing them so they can be treated.”
“But we absolutely need to implement more tests, we have done it during this crisis and today is another step to solve some of those problems with the existing technology.”
Baroness Dido Harding, Acting CEO of the National Institute for Health Protection, the body that replaces Public Health England, said: “New technologies and testing methods are vital to the system continuing to evolve and improve, especially when we evaluate how routine tests could help pick up virus cases earlier.
“We will continue to increase our testing capacity by expanding our network of test sites and investing in new technologies to reach more people through NHS Test and Trace.”
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It comes as a study published in the online journal BMJ Open suggested people who have COVID-19 swab testing should be done again four or more weeks after the first symptoms appear to minimize the risk of infection.
This is because SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infection, takes an average of 30 days to clear from the body after the first positive test result and an average of 36 days after it first symptoms appear, study findings show. .
It is not yet known how contagious a person can be in the recovery phase, the researchers warned.
The findings also indicate that the rate of false negative test results, whereby people falsely make sure they no longer have the active (spread) virus in their bodies, is relatively high (one in five) in convalescence. early, so they run the risk of unknowingly transmitting the infection.
An accurate assessment of how long it takes the body to clear SARS-CoV-2 is key to curbing the risk of infection and minimizing the period of forced isolation for patients who no longer have symptoms, the researchers say.
The large population-based study was carried out following the progress of 4,538 residents of the Reggio Emilia province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, all of whom tested positive for the virus between February 26 and April 22. of this year.
