How do I know if I have COVID-19? That is one of the most commonly asked questions since the novel coronavirus began working its way around the world.
The only way to know if a person has COVID-19 is to conduct a diagnostic test. The gold standard technology for doing these tests is a machine that uses the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, method developed in the early 1980s.
Yet, while PCR works well, it requires dedicated equipment in a lab and trained technicians. This makes it extremely difficult to conduct tests in low- and medium-income countries and remote and rural areas where medical testing facilities are not sophisticated or common. And, as we are seeing now, even the PCR testing facilities in big cities in Italy and the United States are under severe strain.
Keith Pardee and his team at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy may have a solution: a portable testing technology that he calls a “lab-in-a-box.”
Read the full story on U of T News
By Paul Fraumeni
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