Vancouver lab’s at-home COVID-19 test approved by FDA, could come to Canada

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A Vancouver-based lab has developed a less invasive, at-home COVID-19 test that has been approved for use across the U.S. and it could soon come to Canada.

Genetrack’s at home testing kit has proven to be at least as accurate as the current nasopharyngeal swab, according to Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Edmond Wong.

It received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this week.

And Wong says it has some distinct advantages over the currently available test.

“Anyone who has gone to one of the drive-in collection sites will have had a fairly unpleasant experience with a swab being inserted through their nose, deep into their sinus cavity. So it’s a very startling and mildly painful procedure,” Wong says.

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The test requires that the inside of each nostril be swabbed for 10 seconds. The sample is then transferred into a tube and mailed into the lab for testing. Results are available online in about a day. The test doesn’t rely on identifying the presence of antibodies, but rather identifies the virus at a molecular level.

Swabbing the nostrils is particularly effective at identifying the virus in its early stages.

“Many early stage infections you would actually see a fairly large amount of virus in the nose, later on it passes into the sinus, down into the lungs and sometimes through the rest of the body as well,” Wong explains.

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But not having to leave home to get a test or results is the crucial difference between this and existing tests.

“Because you don’t have to go in it, will make the test a lot more accessible. For instance, there is this issue of people who take transit. They don’t drive a car and they have a symptom, you can still access the drive-in locations. But, in order to get there you would have to take transit and potentially expose a lot of people,” he says.

“One of the ways of controlling this virus is early and frequent testing. Making this test more accessible, allowing people to collect at home, removing the fear factor of having what feels like a brain swab will make the number of people that get tested increase — and especially for symptomatic people that don’t have a great way of getting to these test sites.”

Wong says those who test positive are more likely to self-isolate for a full 14 days, noting those who opt not to get tested may leave home and put others at risk once they stop having symptoms.

“What makes this test special is that it does allow for home collection,” he says.

The approval process is different in Canada than in the U.S., so Wong can only guess when it may be available. His most optimistic prediction is within a month.

He notes while there are currently no at-home tests that have been approved in this country, the desire to make testing more available is widespread. In Ontario, testing is now available in pharmacies.