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A test to diagnose coronavirus in just four hours is being used in Addenbrooke’s Hospital to test frontline staff.

The Covid-19 test, developed by the University of Cambridge, is much faster than currently available tests, which take more than 24 hours to return a result.

It is being used to test and screen frontline NHS staff in Addenbrooke’s to ensure they can continue working using just a nasal swab.

It can be used on staff who have been asked to isolate due to potential contact with infected individuals, but who may or may not be themselves infected.

If the result is clear, they can keep working, which reduces the strain on the NHS.

With normal coronavirus tests, a sample is taken from the patient, but the sample potentially contains a live virus.

This means it has to be taken to a special facility and tested under specific conditions, which is why it takes more than 24 hours to get a result.

But with this test, created by the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases, the virus is ‘inactivated’ at the point of sampling, which means it cannot infect anyone else.

This means it can be taken to a lower grade facility, of which there are more, and tested much more quickly.

The university team has enough reagents – the chemical substances used to detect the virus – to allow them to test 200 samples a day, five days a week, for the next 10-12 weeks.

It is hoped they will be able to expand this capacity in the future.

(Image: Getty Images)

This polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test allows scientists to extract a miniscule amount of RNA from the virus and copy it millions of times, creating an amount large enough to confirm presence of the virus.

However, because of the infectious nature of the virus, until now samples have had to be processed in containment level 3 facilities, which slows down the testing process because of the safety requirements.

The team led by Professor Stephen Baker has found a way of inactivating the virus at the point of sampling, enabling them to carry out their work rapidly in level 2 facilities, which are more widely available and have less restrictions on their use.

“PCR tests for coronavirus infection are slow because of the safety requirements necessary for handing this potentially lethal virus,” said Professor Baker.

“Now that we are able to inactivate it, we can dramatically improve the turnaround time from swab to result.

“This will be extremely useful in helping test NHS frontline staff and helping clarify whether self-isolating healthcare staff are infected or negative, potentially allowing them to return to work.”

Their method is based on previous work led by Professor Ian Goodfellow and others in the department of pathology.

The PCR test has been adapted from the in-house, real-time PCR developed in the routine diagnostics laboratory at Addenbrooke’s by Dr Martin Curran. It has been validated against the approved Public Health England tests and is now being offered as a screening tool for NHS staff. Establishing and validating the process for staff testing has been a successful collaboration between clinical and occupational health staff at CUH with the University team.

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The university, together with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is already at the forefront of responding to coronavirus.

On Wednesday, it announced a partnership with AstraZeneca and GSK to set up a new testing laboratory at the university’s Anne McLaren Building.

This facility will be used for screenings for Covid-19 testing and to explore the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages.

Last week, it announced that a university spinout company had developed a point-of-care, rapid diagnostic test for patients that was capable of diagnosis Covid-19 in 90 minutes.