The new tests identifies antibodies made in response to the infection, even if people have had mild or no symptoms.
"If we are telling people that they have been infected and recovered, but in fact they are still vulnerable and do not have immunity to the disease, that is going to be disastrous - especially if they are frontline healthcare workers."The test requires just a small finger-prick of blood
It could be used at home, or at the patient's bedside, with a line appearing in a window on a plastic tray, in a similar way to a pregnancy test.Although healthcare workers will be the top priority, wider testing would allow the economy to start functioning as people are given the all-clear and return to work.Mologic aims to make 8 million kits a year, at a cost of less than £1 each, and hopes they will be ready to be rolled out by mid-June.
Joe Fitchett, the company's medical director, said:"We need to make sure that if this is developed then it is made available to our most vulnerable and most precious in society - that healthcare workers get access and we don't leave these on the shelf. "We need to make sure that once these technologies exist we have the manufacturing ability to produce as many as we can in the shortest space of time, but also that we have access to these technologies here in the UK and globally, especially in the lowest resource settings."
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