Health Protection Agency HPA says it has now given permission to state-run laboratories to run COVID-19 antigen tests that will give a result in 15 minutes.
Speaking to ‘The Press’, HPA said that the Technical Advisory Group TAG team had given its recommendation regarding the use of COVID-19 antigen tests to identify the presences of the pandemic causing virus in an individual’s body.
HPA said that the TAG team had recommended that the permission to do carry out these tests should only be given to state-run laboratories and only under special circumstances.
Local medical supplier Med Tech had introduced the 15-minutes test kits in the Maldivian market last Monday having sought permission to import such kits early last month.
These kits are now being used in multiple countries across the world and clinical studies show that these credit card sized test kits have a test sensitivity of 97 percent as well as accuracy 98.5 percent.
Invented by the world-renowned pharmaceutical company Abbot, the BinaxNOW™ COVID-19 Ag Card rapid antigen test, which has received emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), offers results in 15 minutes and is available as an aid to diagnose the virus that causes COVID-19.
