The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval for a saliva test out of Yale University that has been used in the NBA bubble for players and staff.
What’s happening?
Yale School of Public Health created a saliva-based diagnostic test to determine if someone has the novel coronavirus.
- The FDA gave emergency approval for the test.
- The test — called SalivaDirect — has been used on players and staff at the NBA.
Yale said the test is “simpler, less expensive, and less invasive than the traditional method for such testing, known as nasopharyngeal (NP) swabbing.”
- So far, results found SalivaDirect “is highly sensitive and yields similar outcomes as NP swabbing.”
Diagnostic laboratories can begin using the test, which can be scaled up in production so it can be used across the country (and possibly the world).
Chantal Vogels, a Yale postdoctoral fellow, said this could help increase testing since it works with multiple reagents and instruments from multiple vendors.
This is a huge step forward to make testing more accessible. This started off as an idea in our lab soon after we found saliva to be a promising sample type of the detection of SARS-CoV-2, and now it has the potential to be used on a large scale to help protect public health. We are delighted to make this contribution to the fight against coronavirus.
Will they sell it?
- The researchers said they don’t plan to sell or commercialize the test. They want to provide a simple test for people who need it most to help stop all the testing delays plaguing the country.