US federal govt invests over $400 million to acquire rapid COVID-19 tests

US President Donald Trump administration on October 13 announced “major investment” to increase the availability of Fast Molecular POC Test. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  and the Department of Defense (DOD) have jointly invested $481 million in a cartridge-based on-the-spot COVID-19 test that according to the federal government would help in “dramatically” expand the supply of its tests by the next spring. 

Cue Health’s quick polymerase chain reaction or PCR test for COVID-19 takes less than 30 minutes to determine the genetic material of the novel coronavirus inside an individual and as per reports, it is also regarded as the ‘gold standard’ of testing. If these tests are deployed for point-of-care use, the testing would be swift which would further help in controlling the spread of the disease across the United States. 

HHS said in a statement, “This partnership with HHS and DOD will allow Cue to expand its industrial base and increase domestic production to 100,000 COVID-19 test kits per day by March 2021, and demonstrate this capacity through the delivery of six million COVID-19 tests and 30,000 instruments to the U.S. Government to support the domestic COVID-19 pandemic response."

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Azar hails the investment as ‘latest achievement’

HHS Secretary Alex Azar in a statement hailed the investment in point-of-care tests as the “latest achievement” of public-private testing partnership that has been built by the Trump administration. Touting the accuracy and quick results, Azar said that the same kind of efficiency would take several days in lab tests. The HHS Secretary also said that it would expand the rapid tests that would ensure the safe reopening of the country. However, as per John Hopkins University tally, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States have surpassed 7.8 million with at least 215,902 casualties. 

"Supporting Cue's production of millions of new point-of-care tests is the latest achievement of the public-private testing partnership the Trump Administration has built," said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. "Cue's tests provide results in about 20 minutes with the kind of accuracy provided by lab tests that can take several days, adding to our dramatically expanding supply of rapid tests that can support safe reopening."

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