Healthcare firm hails success of Covid-19 home testing kits
A company based in Stoke-on-Trent has supplied antibody kits that are being used in a major home testing programme that is tracking levels of COVID-19 infection in the community.
Una Health, a distributor of in-vitro diagnostics, is celebrating the success of the British manufactured Fortress Covid-19 LFT test kits which have been validated as the preferred COVID-19 antibody home testing kit in a study by Imperial College.
The home testing kits provided can be self-administered in people’s homes and involve taking a finger prick sample of blood which is then placed in a cassette.
Users find out the results of the antibody test in less than 15 minutes, which provides them with an indication as to whether or not they have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus.
The company supplied the home testing kits to Imperial College as they partnered with Ipsos MORI in a major testing programme for the Department of Health and Social Care.
The Real Time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) is a major programme of home testing for COVID-19 to track the progress of the infection and is the biggest study yet to take place in the UK.
Imperial College published the results of the study into the performance of 11 lateral flow tests in its laboratory, using panels of serum from both infected patients and healthy controls.
The Fortress Covid-19 LF test kits were cited as the preferred test in the study.
Una Health’s Fortress test passed all stages of the study and was confirmed as providing a high degree of accuracy, specificity and usability and 200,000 of the tests will now be rolled out in the next stage of the study.
Peter Lucas, business development director at Una Health, supplier of the Fortress testing kits in the UK, said: “We have worked with Fortress Diagnostics for many years and know that their diagnostic test kits are held in high esteem globally.
“We are delighted that the tests have performed so well in this study. This is a significant step in dispelling the myths surrounding the reliability of home testing kits for Covid-19 antibodies. We will continue to work with leading healthcare institutions around the UK during the pandemic and provide them with our COVID-19 testing solutions.”
