States Detail Specific Use of Abbott’s BinaxNOW COVID-19 Tests
Four weeks after HHS said it would deploy 150 million BinaxNOW COVID-19 tests, states said they will provide the tests to local health departments, schools and universities, and nursing homes.
Last week, states began to report what communities they will distribute Abbott’s BinaxNOW COVID-19 test to assist ongoing reopening efforts.
Back in August, the Trump Administration announced it would deploy 150 million of the rapid, point of care tests nationally. So far, 32 states and the District of Columbia (DC) have shared how they will use the tests.
The states that provided preliminary reports have deployed BinaxNOW to local health departments, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, nursing homes, hospitals, and correctional facilities.
“To protect seniors and to facilitate the continued re-opening of schools, businesses and the economy, the Trump Administration prioritized scaling-up our state and national point of care testing capacity,” Brett Giroir, MD, assistant secretary for health admiral, said in the announcement.
“Through strategic deployment of rapid tests to higher-risk individuals, accompanied by Federal surge- testing of individuals where there are outbreaks – as was the case this summer in multiple Sunbelt states – our national plan to provide the right test, at the right time, to the right person is working,” Giroir continued.
Despite these new rapid, point of care tests, individuals must still take precautions during the pandemic, such as washing their hands and wearing a mask when needed, officials said.
“Combining personal responsibility with smart, targeted testing is a proven formula to prevent outbreaks – but we cannot ‘test our way’ out of this pandemic,” Giroir said. “Public vigilance in adhering to precautionary measures is required – especially as we clearly see the onset of mitigation fatigue.”
Some states have additional priorities for deploying BinaxNOW, including Alaska, which is sending tests to oil drilling sites, Mississippi, which is sending the tests to Veterans’ homes, Nevada, which is prioritizing tribal health clinics, and Colorado, which is focusing on local public health agencies to test homeless populations, HHS noted.
Just last Friday, HHS announced that 389,040 Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 rapid tests have been distributed at no cost to 83 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in 24 states.
The states received the tests as part of the distribution included North Carolina (52,040 tests) Georgia (41,000), Louisiana (39,000), Texas (28,200), Alabama (26,520), Maryland (26,120), Virginia (21,400), South Carolina (18,040), Tennessee (18,000), and Florida (18,000).
In the October 31 announcement, Giroir said that African Americans are five times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID-19 and many black colleges and universities cannot afford coronavirus testing from private firms.
Therefore, it is essential that these schools receive the BinaxNOW shipments as part of a target distribution. The tests will give the institutions the opportunity to test symptomatic individuals, the department said.
In previous data submitted to FDA, BinaxNOW showed sensitivity of 97.1 (positive percent agreement) and specificity of 98.5 percent (negative percent agreement) in patients suspected of having COVID-19 by their healthcare provider within the first seven days of symptoms.
Due to these positive findings, FDA issued an emergency use authorization to Abbott for the BinaxNOW test at the beginning of September.
The test stood out among other released coronavirus tests because it takes just 15 minutes to provide results to caregivers and the results can be read directly from the testing card.
At the start of the pandemic, Abbott invested hundreds of millions of dollars in two new US facilities to manufacture BinaxNOW at a larger scale. By the beginning of October, Abbott had already produced nearly 50 million of the tests.
The availability of near real-time COVID-19 test results could make significant progress with combatting the highly contagious virus, says Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California in San Francisco.
“Our nation's frontline healthcare workers and clinical laboratory personnel have been under siege since the onset of this pandemic,” said Chiu. “The availability of rapid testing for COVID-19 will help support overburdened laboratories, accelerate turnaround times and greatly expand access to people who need it.”
