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The current system to test for coronavirus is running so far behind that results often reach people too late to be useful. So there is a real need for rapid tests which can be used at home. The Food and Drug Administration could soon decide whether to give the go-ahead to a test that is fast and inexpensive. And we have more from NPR science correspondent Richard Harris.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: If the United States is going to bring its coronavirus epidemic under control, Dr. Michael Mina at the Harvard School of Public Health says we simply have to solve the bottleneck of testing.
MICHAEL MINA: I envision a time when everyone can order a pack of 50 tests for $50 and have those and use them every other day for a couple of months.
HARRIS: At-home tests seem to be many months away. Mina says they could be here sooner if the Food and Drug Administration would not require that tests meet really high accuracy standards. Specifically, some tests in development don't catch the virus in the early or late stages of infection but only at its peak. But in Mina's view, that's OK.
MINA: As long as you're using the test on a pretty frequent basis, you will be more likely than not to catch the person on the day that they might go out and transmit. And then they'll know to stay home.
HARRIS: A Massachusetts-based startup called E25Bio has developed a test like this. Company executive Irene Bosch says they've tried it out in hospitals.
IRENE BOSCH: What we learn is that the test is able to be very efficient for people who have a lot of virus.
HARRIS: It's nowhere near as good at detecting low levels, but you can have the most sensitive test in the world, she says, and if you only test people once a month, that test, too, will miss a lot of disease. So her company is focusing on quick, easy and cheap.
BOSCH: These are really simple strips. They're miniaturized pregnancy tests, so you can imagine you can't find anything more simple than this.
HARRIS: The sample for this test would come from the nose or the mouth. Most important is the price.
BOSCH: The test has to be affordable. It can not work if it's not affordable. Right now, it might cost $3 to make it, $4, so affordable will be what it costs.
HARRIS: The company would like to set the price at cost, though, to stay in business they'd need a government subsidy. E25Bio has a partner that's poised to produce a million of these tests a week, Bosch says. They've asked the governor of Massachusetts to approve it, not for home use just yet but for pharmacies and out in the community.
BOSCH: To bring people back to work. And how do you bring kids back to school or teachers to be safe? This is the kind of test you need.
HARRIS: The company is in talks with the FDA about approving this test, too, even though it would be a departure for the agency, which has so far required a higher standard of accuracy.
BOSCH: This is a Pandora's box, and this is like a black box both, Pandora and black. Why?
HARRIS: The FDA doesn't want to take an action that backfires. And it also doesn't tend to reveal its thinking as it deliberates. The FDA told NPR that the agency weighs the benefits and risks of all coronavirus tests, but it didn't discuss its thinking on this novel testing strategy.
TREVOR MARTIN: There's always a trade-off here. There's no free lunch.
HARRIS: Trevor Martin is CEO of another biotech company, Mammoth Biosciences. His company is also making a rapid test based on the gene editing technology CRISPR.
MARTIN: So at Mammoth, our goal is to have a test that delivers extremely high-quality results with a single test, the same as what you would get in a lab or better.
HARRIS: Their test isn't likely to be on the market until the end of the year, which seems like the distant future considering the pace of the epidemic. But Martin says precision has a place in controlling COVID-19, too.
MARTIN: That's really able to target the very early asymptomatic stage, which is super important if you want to prevent spread.
HARRIS: It's unlikely that there will be one single testing solution. But what exactly the blend will be is a work in progress.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF NORTHCAPE'S "ANOTHER ENDLESS MORNING (IN THE SANCTUARY)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
