Singapore scientists develop blood test kit to detect immunity against COVID-19 in 10 minutes
A team of scientists in Singapore has developed a blood test kit that can tell if a person has immunity against COVID-19 in 10 minutes, with up to 93 per cent accuracy.
The kit was developed by a team from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). SMART is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s research enterprise in Singapore.
The kit requires a drop of blood and can detect if a person has antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – in 10 minutes, compared with 24 to 72 hours needed for conventional laboratory testing, said SMART and NTU in a joint news release on Thursday (Sep 22).
The test kit can be “easily adapted” for new variants of concern and other diseases in the future, the scientists said, describing the test as “low cost”.
The test can be administered by a person without medical training and does not require any specialised laboratory equipment. This will pave the way for "large-scale testing of vulnerable subsets of the population", such as the elderly, said the news release. Read More…
