A Taiwanese research team has developed a COVID-19 test kit that can deliver results in about 15 minutes with 80 to 90 percent accuracy, the group said yesterday.
The rapid test is likely to be ready for the market by the end of the year, the team of researchers from the National Defense Medical Center and the National Health Research Institutes said during an introduction of the technology at a promotional event for the upcoming Taiwan Innotech Expo.
Lai Szu-chia (賴思佳), an associate researcher at the center’s Institute of Preventative Medicine, said that the two greatest challenges in developing the test were isolating viral strains and setting up a viral antigen bank, which took four months and three months respectively.
That work was necessary to maximize the sensitivity and specificity of the test kit, the two main factors that determine its performance, she said.
A highly sensitive test should capture all true positive results, while a highly specific test should rule out all true negative results, she added.
In their work on the rapid test kit, the team received technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and nearly NT$10 million (US$341,180) in funding from the institutes, Lai said.
After the test kit technology was completed, it was sent to five companies — Trison Technology, Taiwan Advance Bio-pharmaceutical, Taiwan Carbon Nano Technology, Enimmune and Cold Spring Biotech — for trial production and clinical testing, she said.
One of the manufacturers has already requested emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration and hopes to have the test on the market by the end of the year, she added.
Their test kit is different from the commonly used polymerase chain reaction tests, which are highly accurate, but also have longer processing times and are labor-intensive, Lai said.
Their rapid test kit uses a nasal swab and can deliver results with 80 to 90 percent accuracy in as little as 15 minutes, making it a good option to testing at airports, schools and nursing homes, she said.
The test kits would also ease the burden on frontline medical personnel, she added.
The Taiwan Innotech Expo, an annual exhibition of innovative technologies hosted by the government, is to be held from Thursday next week to Sept. 29 at the Taipei World Trade Center.
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