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Michael Mina [1] has promoted [2] the idea of $1 antigen tests as a screening tool. The idea is not that these are diagnostic (medical) tools, rather they are t

Michael Mina [1] has promoted [2] the idea of $1 antigen tests as a screening tool. The idea is not that these are diagnostic (medical) tools, rather they are tools to use in schools, workplaces, sporting events. A positive antigen test would be followed up by a PCR test. The "This week in Virology" hosts had Mina on their podcast [3] and fully buy this argument for cheap tests for screening It seems to me that this test from India is going in the same direction, though it's not clear why it's so much more expensive than what Mina describes. [1] https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab [2] https://www.rapidtests.org/ https://www.rapidtests.org/ [3] https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/

sradman 6y ago
> It seems to me that this test from India is going in the same direction [as the antigen rapid tests] I think the FELUDA CRISPR/Cas9 test is more of an alternative to PCR with the potential for significantly reduced price per test. Michael Mina's $1 Lick-a-Stick self-administered rapid test is much more of a game changer. The BBC article said that "...the new test had 96% sensitivity and 98% specificity." The fact that we are talking about sensitivity without specifying the viral concentration of the test sample means that Mina's message is not getting through. We need rapid tests that target infectious viral loads, that is, equivalent to PCR Cycle Threshold (CT) of 24 or less. EDIT: changed $5 Lick-a-Stick to $1 - the Abbott BinaxNOW test is $5