By GREGORY ZELLER //
With a long-term focus on new screening programs for schools and underserved communities, Northwell Health is expanding use of self-administered COVID tests.
Northwell Health Labs, the New Hyde Park-based health system’s laboratory-testing division, announced Monday that a $2.5 million grant from the nonprofit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the expanded internal use of LabGold, a highly reliable polymerase chain reaction nasal-swab test, to screen employees for COVID-19.
The test, which incorporates a Q-tip-like cotton swab and a receptor about the size of a pen cap, was developed by Delaware-based agricultural chemical company Corteva Agriscience, Indiana-based biotech Quantigen and Florida-based contract manufacturer SteriPack USA, with Gates Foundation funding. After validating LabGold internally, Northwell Health received U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorization for the self-administered test in August.
LabGold offers many benefits for the tested person beyond being self-administered. Right at the top: The swab is inserted just inside the nostril, unlike nasopharyngeal swabs that require trained healthcare workers to dig deep inside the nasal cavity (some would say all the way to the brain’s frontal lobe, a slight exaggeration).
Dwayne Breining: Stopping the spread.
The self-administered test is also ultra-high throughput – that means hundreds of thousands of screenings can be performed in a single day, with results available inside of 24 hours – and costs only about $25 a pop, as opposed to about $150 for a conventional coronavirus PCR test.
Those benefits are real improvements for COVID diagnostic testing, which has been “a crucial step in combating the virus,” according to Northwell Health Labs Executive Director Dwayne Breining.
“This affordable, self-administered swab is a game-changer in the fight against COVID-19,” Breining said Monday. “We can process LabGold specimens quickly and cheaply, helping to stop the spread of COVID-19 in its tracks.”
Funded by the Gates Foundation grant, Northwell Health Labs will expand its LabGold testing as part of “routine workforce infection surveillance,” according to the health system.
If all goes according to plan, Northwell – which has already processed 300,000 employee PCR tests just in 2021 – will begin offering the self-administered tests to the public, with an eye on supporting large-scale corporate and school-based screening programs.
“The ability to initiate testing untethers COVID-19 screening from the hassles and frustrations of going to a healthcare facility or testing site, and puts the power of health and wellness in the hands of the public,” James Crawford, Northwell Health’s senior vice president of laboratory services, said in a statement. “This maximizes our ability to detect COVID and thus reduce the chance of COVID exposure and workplace or community spread.”
