New York scrambles to replace U.S. government’s faulty coronavirus test kits
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New York health officials are trying to get their own coronavirus testing kits up and running after getting stuck with faulty tests from the federal government that they said left them unable to diagnose people quickly in the nation’s most populous city.
Three weeks ago, the FDA gave the green light for state and local labs to start using a testing kit developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But most labs that received the kits complained they had faulty components and produced inconclusive results, which the CDC later acknowledged.
And in New York City, the kit they received was even more faulty than most, meaning city officials could not use a workaround released by the CDC this week. Meanwhile, it has had to courier samples to CDC’s laboratories in Atlanta, adding a day or more to the process.
New York City officials said on Thursday they had a possible coronavirus patient and were sending a sample for testing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The patient had respiratory symptoms and had recently traveled in Italy, which has emerged as a hub of the coronavirus, health officials said.
The federal government expanded its criteria to test for #COVID19 to include Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea. As a result, we have now identified another person in New York City to test for the virus. https://t.co/HaRFxUSvmu
— Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, MD, PhD (@NYCHealthCommr) February 27, 2020
New York state’s Department of Health filed an emergency application on Friday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be allowed to use a testing kit for the new coronavirus it has developed in-state, according to an official involved in the process.
Public health officials say the ability to test locally and get results within hours will be critical to a rapid response to the fast-spreading virus that originated in China, causing a sometimes fatal respiratory illness, and has spread to 46 countries.
The first U.S. case of coronavirus infection in a patient with no known risk factors — travel to a hot zone or contact with another person known to be infected — emerged this week near Travis Air Force Base.
