Coronavirus has now spread to the United States, thus, causing over 850,000 confirmed cases and less than 50,000 deaths. Unfortunately, the U.S.-approved Abbott COVID-19 testing kit does not add to the solution against the virus. It turns out that the device shows inaccurate results as high as 15%. Abbott Labs admits this mistake and even said that the federal government should not use their device anymore.
Abbott COVID-19 testing kit may not be as accurate as you think it is
Abbott Coronavirus testing kit is one of the praised and high-quality COVID-19 testing devices available in the United States. The federal government and U.S. President Donald Trump even use this device from before to test all of the officials that possibly got the virus.
Abbott Labs boasts their device to get results as fast as within five minutes. This was the reason why the government insists on this testing kit to be used in all states. However, here's unfortunate news.
CNN recently reported that Abbott Laboratories admitted that their device shall now be removed as an official Coronavirus testing kit in the country. The company officially warns the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and all the users of the testing kit to follow a certain protocol-- if they still wanted to use the device.
15% of the time Abbott testing kit shows false-negative results
CNN's senior correspondent Drew Griffin reported that Abbott Labs wants all hospitals to be warned on using the device. It turns out that 15 percent of the time, the test won't work or may produce false-negative or false-positive results.
As explained, if the Abbott testing kit will not be used properly, the results may change instantly. As advised, hospitals must get the swab of the patient and directly put it in the device-- meaning that transporting the swab samples from hospitals to hospitals will not result accurately.
Tech Times recently reported that researchers from the Cleveland Clinic first found out about the 15 percent inaccuracy of the Abbott testing kit. The study's lead author, Dr. Gary Procop of the Department of Laboratory Medicine of Cleveland Clinic, said that test kits should be 95 percent accurate most of the time. In conclusion, Abbott's testing kit does not qualify for the standard requirement of a virus testing kit.
However, their study was immediately debunked by Abbott Labs themselves and said that their device is safe and accurate.
"When the direct swab method is used, the test is performing as expected, and we are confident in its performance," the Illinois-based company told Daily Mail in a previous report.
