A new analysis has found the rapid COVID-19 test from DnaNudge is highly accurate, Reuters reports.
In early August, the UK announced that it would be rolling out rapid tests to detect SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and other respiratory diseases, including one from DnaNudge using its NudgeBox platform. Critics, however, noted that there was little data available regarding either the DnaNudge test or the other one being rolled out from Oxford Nanopore.
Researchers from Imperial College London have now compared the CovidNudge test to standard RT-PCR testing on a suite of 386 paired samples. As they report in The Lancet Microbe, the researchers found the CovidNudge test had a sensitivity of 94 percent and a specificity of 100 percent. "These results suggest that the CovidNudge test, which can be performed at a patient's bedside without the need to handle any sample material, has comparable accuracy to standard laboratory testing," senior author Graham Cooke from Imperial College London tells Reuters.
The Guardian notes, though, that the NudgeBox can only run a limited number of tests per day and might not help the effort to provide millions of tests.