COVID-19 detection possible in 20 minutes through a blood test, say Australian researchers

Researchers in Australia have discovered a test method to determine COVID-19 cases using blood samples in approximately 20 minutes, a research paper claimed. The researchers at Monash University said that they have developed a simple assay based on commonly used blood typing infrastructure and the breakthrough can help governments with contact tracing to limit community spread.

According to the paper published in the journal ACS Sensors, the researchers were able to identify recent COVID-19 cases using 25 microlitres of plasma from blood samples. The research team was led by BioPRIA and Monash University’s Chemical Engineering Department and included researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent BioNano Science and Technology (CBNS).

The researchers said that positive cases of COVID-19 cause an agglutination or a clustering of red blood cells, which is easily identifiable. They added that agglutination tests based on the commonly employed blood typing methods are a viable option since these blood typing tests are employed in hospitals worldwide with high-throughput, fast (10–30 min), and automated in most cases.

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Researcher explains test

Dr Simon Corrie, senior lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Monash University, said in a statement that the findings were exciting for governments and health care teams across the world, adding that this practice has the potential to become upscaled immediately for serological testing. 

Explaining the test procedure, Dr Corrie said that detection of antibodies in patient plasma or serum involves pipetting a mixture of reagent red blood cells and antibody-containing serum/plasma onto a gel card containing separation media, incubating the card for 5-15 minutes, and using a centrifuge to separate agglutinated cells from free cells.

“This simple assay...can be rolled out rapidly across Australia and beyond. This test can be used in any lab that has blood typing infrastructure, which is extremely common across the world,” Dr Corrie added.

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(Image credit: Monash University)