A new saliva-based laboratory diagnostic examination for the new coronavirus has been granted by the Food and Drug Administration an emergency use authorization, the new test was developed by the researchers of Yale University's School of Public Health.
SalivaDirect is a simple, more affordable, and less invasive testing procedure that has been discovered to yield comparable results to the traditional nasal swab test.
Chantal Vogels, a postdoctoral fellow of Yale and the one who spearheaded the laboratory development and validation together with Doug Brackney who is an adjunct assistant clinical professor, said that the developed test is a big step taken to make the new coronavirus testing more accessible.
In a statement by Vogel, the test started as an idea in their laboratory after they have discovered that saliva is a promising type of sample in the detection of SARS-SoV-2 and that it has the potential to be used in massive scale to help secure public health, adding that their team is delighted to make such contribution to fighting against the new coronavirus, Yale News reported.
The development of the new test to determine the presence of the novel coronavirus was led by Nathan Grubaugh, assistant professor and Anne Wyllie, associate research scientist, at Yale School of Public Health. The aim of the researchers was to decrease the overall testing costs and times and to increase the availability of saliva-based testing.
According to Grubaugh, wide-spread testing is important for their control efforts, adding that they tried to simplify the test in order to lessen the cost of reagents to a couple of dollars, and said they were expecting that the lab charges will only cost $10 per sample.
Grubaugh uttered that if cheaper alternatives will be implemented nationwide, then the pandemic may be handled by the country, even before a vaccine will be readily available.
The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut, was said to build a partnership with Yale to find ways to carry out saliva-based testing for a large-scale audience
Charles Lee, director of the laboratory, stated their team needed to continue on inventing and implementing newly developed ways to conduct Covid-19 testing rapidly, less costly, and with greater accessibility while keeping up with acceptable test accuracy. And added that following this method will be an important key in achieving their goal.
According to Fox, the Yale School of Public Health will continue its partnership with the Ivy League university's pathology department.
In a statement by Professor Chen Liu, chair of Yale Pathology and the one who has seen the study's clinical validation, using SalivaDirect, the use of the newly found testing method for SARS-CoV-2, the laboratory can double its testing capacity.
Liu articulated that the department's CLIA-certified clinical laboratory will begin to offer the SalivaDirect as a testing alternative in the forthcoming days.
A related study has been financed by the National Basketball Players Association and a Fast Grant from the Emergent Ventures at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. NBA players and staff were tested through SalivaDirect as a part of the program to help test for individuals not showing symptoms of the disease.
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