ein US rapid test to diagnose the coronavirus, which has already been ordered by 36 countries, does not work properly. That was admitted on Wednesday by the US health authority CDC, which developed the test. When tested in laboratories in several US states, the tests did not produce a clear result – positive or negative – said CDC director of respiratory diseases, Nancy Messonnier. Presumably one of the three substances for the detection of the virus does not work uniformly.
The CDC had started sending the rapid tests to certified laboratories in the United States last week. According to the agency, 36 countries abroad have also ordered the test, which should provide a diagnosis within four hours. However, delivery abroad has not yet started.
The new virus called Covid-19 has infected over 44,000 people worldwide, most of them in mainland China. There are 16 infections identified in Germany and 13 in the United States.
The causative agent of the lung disease first appeared in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Since then, more than 1,100 people have died, more than the Sars epidemic around 17 years ago.
–
