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Abbott Launches Molecular Point-of-Care Test to Detect Novel Coronavirus in as Little as Five Minutes
Abbott have announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the fastest available molecular point-of-care test for the detection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), delivering positive results in as little as five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes. The test will run on the company's ID NOW™ platform, providing rapid results in a wide range of healthcare settings such as physicians' offices, urgent care clinics and hospital emergency departments.
The ID NOW platform is small, lightweight and portable, and uses molecular technology, which is valued by clinicians and the scientific community for its high degree of accuracy. ID NOW is already the most widely available molecular point-of-care testing platform in the U.S. today.
Read more: Abbott Launches Test to Detect Coronavirus in as Little as Five Minutes
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A breathing aid that can help keep coronavirus patients out of intensive care has been created in under a week.
University College London engineers worked with clinicians at UCLH and Mercedes Formula One to build the device, which delivers oxygen to the lungs without needing a ventilator.
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices are already used in hospitals but are in short supply.
China and Italy used them to help Covid-19 patients.
Forty of the new devices have been delivered to ULCH and to three other London hospitals. If trials go well, up to 1,000 of the CPAP machines can be produced per day by Mercedes-AMG-HPP, beginning in a week's time.
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An international group of nearly 400 volunteers with expertise in cybersecurity formed on Wednesday to fight hacking related to the novel coronavirus.
Called the COVID-19 CTI League, for cyber threat intelligence, the group spans more than 40 countries and includes professionals in senior positions at such major companies as Microsoft and Amazon.
One of four initial managers of the effort, Marc Rogers, said the top priority would be working to combat hacks against medical facilities and other frontline responders to the pandemic. It is already working on hacks of health organizations.
Also key is the defence of communication networks and services that have become essential as more people work from home, said Rogers, head of security at the long-running hacking conference Def Con and a vice president at security company Okta.
Read more: Cybersecurity experts come together to fight coronavirus-related hacking
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The government is looking for businesses who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the UK as part of our response to COVID-19.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking for organisations who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the United Kingdom as part of the Government's response to COVID-19.
These questions aim to identify the suitability and readiness of organisations to be involved in the initiative.
Read more: Readiness to supply ventilators and ventilator components.
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The NHS has unveiled a package of measures in the battle against coronavirus fake news – working with Google, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – to help the public get easy access to accurate NHS information and avoid myths and misinformation.
The measures include Google providing easy access to verified NHS guidance when someone searches for coronavirus. As well as helping to promote good advice, the NHS has been fighting bad advice and misinformation about the virus in the media and online, working with Twitter to suspend a false account posing as a hospital and putting out inaccurate information about the number of coronavirus cases; and publicly condemning homeopaths promoting false treatments.
The NHS is also working with Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to verify or ‘blue tick’ over 800 accounts belonging to NHS organisations including hospital trusts and local commissioning groups. Following months of work, the NHS and Google will this week introduce new Knowledge Panels – prominent pop out boxes of information – as part of Google search on mobile, to ensure it provides the public in the UK with easy access to NHS information about more than 250 health conditions, including coronavirus. Both Twitter and Facebook are directing users to the NHS website if they search for coronavirus.
Read more: NHS takes action against coronavirus fake news online
