Covid-19 testing comes home

As the pandemic ebbs, in the West at least, Covid-19 test makers are manoeuvring to shore up their revenues, prompting some to turn to the home testing market. The shift makes sense as hospitals slowly empty of Covid-19 patients who are best served by high-throughput, high-complexity PCR-based assays. So far the US FDA has authorised six antigen tests for home use as well as three that detect the coronavirus’s nucleic acid – but these use isothermal amplification steps rather than PCR, which can only occur in a laboratory. More importantly, many of these are authorised for purchase without a prescription, with the user paying out of pocket, perhaps to show that they are safe to travel, enter a workplace or attend an event. Pricing, however, could be a hurdle. In the US antigen tests from Abbott and Quidel sell to the individual consumer for $10-15 each – fine once, but these tests are best used repeatedly to enable population-level screening. And these are the cheaper ones: some of the others can cost around $50 each. 

Note: "Other" includes 23 antigen tests, six home sampling kits, three saliva collection devices and three IL-6 tests.