Houston, Aug 16 (PTI) The US health watchdog has authorised the emergency use of some new and expensive saliva established laboratory diagnostic test for COVID-19 which might be a game changer in the identification of the infection because it will enable rapid testing among more people easily.
Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drugs Administration Commissioner, stated that the new saliva test will increase efficiency and prevent shortage of vital evaluation components including reagents.

"Providing this kind of endurance for processing saliva samples to test for COVID-19 disease is groundbreaking in terms of efficacy and preventing shortages of critical evaluation elements such as reagents," he said in an announcement.

The bureau has previously authorised four additional tests which use spit for sampling, however these yielded varying results. Authorisation of this new evaluation occurs amid ongoing disarray over COVID-19 testing.

The US has been plagued by an inconsistent plan for detecting the virus, thanks partly to persistent shortages and also the use of a number of unique tests which have occasionally yielded devastating consequences.

The new method named SalivaDirect has been further confirmed as a test for asymptomatic people through a programme that assesses players and personnel in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Results so far have found that SalivaDirect is highly sensitive and yields similar results as NP swabbing.

With the FDA's emergency use authorisation, the testing technique is immediately available to additional diagnostic labs that are looking to start using the new evaluation, which is scaled up quickly for use throughout the country and, possibly, beyond -- in the coming weeks, researchers said.

A key part of SalivaDirect, the researchers note, is that the procedure has been validated with reagents and instruments from several vendors.

This flexibility enables continued testing if some vendors experience supply chain issues as experienced in the pandemic.

"This started off as an idea in our laboratory shortly after we found saliva to be a promising sample sort of the detection of SARS-CoV-2, and it has the capacity to be employed on a massive scale to help safeguard public health. We're delighted to make this contribution to the fight against coronavirus," he said.

Improvement of SalivaDirect as a means of quickly expanding SARS-CoV-2 testing was spearheaded this spring by Nathan Grubaugh and Anne Wyllie, assistant professor and associate researcher, respectively, at Yale School of Public Health.

After discovering spit for a promising sample form for SARS-CoV-2 detection, they wanted to improve the procedure further.

"With saliva being quick and simple to collect, we realised that it might be a game-changer at COVID-19 diagnostics," said Wyllie.

With testing desperately required, the Yale group was decided to decrease both testing times and prices, to make testing broadly accessible.

"Wide-spread testing is critical for our control efforts. We assessed the test so that it just costs a few dollars for reagents and also we expect that labs will only charge approximately USD 10 percent sample. If cheap alternatives like SalivaDirect can be put into place throughout the nation, we may finally get a handle on this pandemic, even before a vaccine," explained Grubaugh.

Grubaugh and Wyllie stated that they aren't trying to commercialise the procedure rather need the simplified testing approach to help those most in need.

Testing for SARS-CoV-2 was a significant stumbling block in the fight against the outbreak, with lengthy delays and shortages of testing.

Some experts have said that up to 4 million tests are needed daily and SalivaDirect supplies one particular pathway toward this goal, the investigators said.

"With SalivaDirectour laboratory can double our testing capability," said Professor Chen Liu, seat of Yale Pathology, who oversaw the clinical analysis of the analysis.

Globally, coronavirus has infected 20,950,402 people while the disease has killed to date 760,213 many others. PTI SHK RUP RUP