The accelerated capacity and increased awareness of testing for respiratory illnesses has been a positive legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healthcare services and the public are now familiar with different ways to test for respiratory pathogens, from self-administered rapid antigen tests to laboratory PCR testing.

However, the speed, ease and portability of rapid analysers gives them a unique role to play in detection, treatment and prevention of respiratory diseases.

Although respiratory panels are available within pathology laboratories around the country that can differentiate between respiratory pathogens, in some instances it will greatly benefit patient care to be able to obtain a diagnostic result faster than traditional laboratory testing.

Dr Henning Liljeqvist is a public health expert and epidemiologist, and sits on the medical advisory board of Hemisphere Management Group, an organisation specialising in biosecurity for large events and entertainment. Dr Liljeqvist points out that rapid testing technologies are highly valuable in several circumstances.

“A unit that's highly portable and can be taken out into communities where testing can be done, sometimes it helps us to address an outbreak, or a potential outbreak. We can respond very early if it's in a community that has access to this kind of testing, or it could be an aged care facility, where testing is a little more cumbersome. Normally we have to involve specimen sampling and then carrying it back to a lab and getting it tested. If we can actually do something on the spot, then we can respond much more swiftly, both with the treatment of the individual and any sort of prophylactic treatment we might need to carry out with those who may have been exposed.

If we can get a test in 15 minutes, we should be able to start treatment within half an hour, rather than waiting for another two days for a lab result to come back. That rapid testing ability is most certainly going to help the individual because, when it comes to antivirals with COVID-19, the timing of that treatment is vital. It needs to be started as soon as possible in order to maximise the effects of it.”

There are other important benefits to rapid testing beyond the individual patient and those coming into contact with them, Dr Liljeqvist said:

“It aids our bio surveillance program. It helps with rapid detection, it helps with investigation of what we have rapidly detected, and it helps with rapid response to what we've investigated. So, it's going to speed up everything. The more we have of this kind of technology, the better.”

With the ID NOW^TM COVID 2.0 test from Abbott, health professionals can now utilise the small, portable ID NOW analyser to perform a molecular COVID-19 test followed by an influenza A & B test on a single swab. The time to result is just 22 minutes for negatives, with positive results in as little as 15 minutes.

“I've worked in many remote practices myself around the world, throughout Africa and the Middle East, and central Asia, and I would have really benefited from having something like this. But when I was out there, it didn't exist. I used microscopes and other laboratory equipment, and it took ages, and we didn't have the capability to be so specific.

I certainly would have appreciated having this and my patients would, and so would the local communities. I know what it's like to work remotely, and the importance of having correct and speedy diagnoses.

Nowadays there are many large organisations that work remotely, in oil and mining for example, that have very advanced clinics in remote settings that no doubt would happily buy this kind of equipment, if they find out that it's available.”

Dr Liljeqvist notes that testing also plays a role in vaccination strategies for COVID-19 and influenza, beyond providing a picture of how much virus is circulating in the community. He said:

“An important part of what's going on at the moment is the advice on vaccination, which is that you should have a boost of vaccination against COVID-19, either when it’s six months since you were last vaccinated, or six months since you were last infected. And if you don't test, you're not going to know whether you had COVID or not.

That sniffle you had three months ago, it may or may not have been COVID, technically you shouldn't really get vaccinated yet because it's very likely that it was COVID and you're not getting the optimal result out of that vaccine.”

Visit globalpointofcare.abbott to learn more about the ID NOW^TM platform now with the flexibility to test for COVID-19 only, or COVID-19 and influenza A & B using a single patient swab sample.