By Charlotte Webster-
Thousands of home coronavirus test kits are to be made available within days in the UK, it has been revealed.
Sharon Peacock, director of Public Health England (PHE) announced that the kits which take 15 minutes to complete will be sold in chemists such as Boots, or delivered by Amazon to people with symptoms who are self-isolating as soon as next week.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said the UK government bought millions of the tests on Tuesday and is ordering millions more.The antibody test involves pricking a finger and analysing a drop of blood in a device that looks like a pregnancy test.
The test is expected to be able to detect the presence of the antibodies IGM, which emerges in the early stages of infection and IGG
Ms Peacock said : “Several million tests have ben purchased for use. These are brand new products. We have to be clear they work as they are claimed to do.
“Once they have been tested this week and the bulk of tests arrive, they will be distributed into the community.”Key workers, including NHS doctors and nurses, will be able to make quicker decisions about self-isolating or returning to work on the frontlines of the pandemic with the new game-changing test kit.
The tests could make it easier for NHS staff with coronavirus symptoms as they will know within minutes whether they have the disease, enabling them to return to work without having to self-isolate.
At the moment, only patients admitted to hospital are being routinely tested for Covid-19. Between 5,000 to 6,000 people are being tested a day, but the UK government plans to increase this to 25,000 tests a day within four weeks.
The new antibody tests could help the UK achieve what the World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments to do, which is to “test, test, test”.