The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has fixed the issue that cropped up with some of its coronavirus testing kits, NPR reports, noting that this has delayed testing in the US.
Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to enable other labs to use a testing kit CDC developed to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 outbreak. A positive result on the test indicates likely infection with SARS-CoV-2, though a negative result does not fully rule out possible infection, as 360Dx noted at the time.
Shortly thereafter, though, some labs that received the CDC kit ran into issues with them during quality control testing, and the agency said it would have to re-manufacture one of the kit's reagents.
According to NPR, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says 40 state labs in the US can now run the test and all 93 labs should be able to by next week.
"It's really good news," Kelly Wroblewski from the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents US public health labs tells it. "Testing is incredibly important."
NPR notes that a new COVID-19 case reported in California appears to be the first case of community spread in the US.