The University of Arizona said Monday that researchers had produced 1,600 additional COVID-19 test kits over the weekend and that the university's Health Sciences Biorepository had secured materials needed to make an additional 7,000 test kits this week.

The additional tests come amid a significant shortage of kits nationally that has limited the ability to test patients for the virus.

The kits contain materials needed to collect specimens from patients for testing, including tubes, swabs used to collect samples from a person's nose or throat, paper inserts to label and track the samples, biohazard bags and ingredients that stabilize the virus until samples can be tested, otherwise known as a testing medium. Both swabs and testing medium ingredients have been in short supply.

The university's ability to quickly manufacture the kits was in part due to several decades of experience creating FDA-approved specimen collection kits, according to Biorepository Director David Harris.

"Once we knew what the components were and where the hang-up was, we were able to obtain the necessary components and put it together," he said. "Then it's up to the rest of you to go out and find the people who need to be tested."

The testing medium was created using a formula provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a university press release.

Using this formula, researchers initially manufactured five liters of the substance, which was enough for 1,600 test kits to be manufactured over the weekend by a team of seven researchers. Harris described the team's ability to produce such a high volume of tests in such a short time as "brute force."

"We have a good team willing to come in on the weekend and work extra hours," he said. "We set up an assembly line so that we could readily handle that sort of backbreaking and mind-numbing work of assembling all these kits together."

The test kits will be used to help supply the university's campus health service, the Pima County Health Departmentand potentially Banner Health, Arizona's largest health system, which launched drive-thru testing for patients on Monday.

According to Harris, Pima County officials will be picking up 1,000 test kits from the university Tuesday, and are requesting 1,000 additional tests per week for the foreseeable future.

The university has the capacity to supply the county with that many kits per week for several months, Harris said, as long as money doesn't run out and there aren't any labor shortages.

"A thousand per week would not be a big hindrance to what we're doing because a lot of the other things are scaled down based on the shelter-in-place," he said.

Each test kit has a shelf life of up to a year when refrigerated and one test kit would be enough to test one sample per person, he said. Due to health concerns and the nature of the testing, no part of the test is re-usable.

He estimated the university has the capacity to manufacture 5,000 test kits per week and can currently get enough supplies to make 20,000 test kits if they need to because of industry connections.

"Based on our 30 years of experience in the field, we knew the various vendors and some of the back doors ... to be able to get the components to make the kits," Harris said.

One big vendor giving supplies to the university is Thermo Fisher, according to Harris, a Massachusetts-based company that manufactures scientific tools.

Harris declined to name the small vendors that the university is working with, but said testing components bought by the university are all FDA-approved to ensure quality control. He also said researchers in the lab are checking tests on themselves, since many of them are being exposed to patients with COVID-19.

"Quite frankly, we're not trying to develop anything novel or even particularly advanced," said Ryan Sprissler, staff scientist and manager of the University of Arizona Genomics Core, in the press release. "We're trying to meet a critical need, which, right now, means making collection tests more readily available."

In addition to sample-collection kits, testing patients for COVID-19 also requires a testing laboratory to process the samples and give results. The University of Arizona Genomics Core is looking into providing additional diagnostic testing as well.

"We hope to have that up and running in the next few weeks," Harris said.

Arizona State University has also expressed interest in using their university resources to help manufacture test kits and hopes to open a drive-through testing site soon. Harris said there hasn't been time yet for the UA to collaborate with other universities on making test kits, but Harris said they'd be "happy to do that," if other universities request help.

The necessary financial resources to manufacture the initial tests were provided by Michael Abecassis, the Dean of the university's College of Medicine–Tucson, according to Harris, who said that funding was not his top priority at this time.

In terms of whether the university will consider distributing their test kits to other recipients, Harris said it depends on demand.

Amanda Morris covers all things bioscience, which includes health care, technology, new research and the environment. Send her tips, story ideas, or dog memes at amorris@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @amandamomorris for the latest bioscience updates.

Independent coverage of bioscience in Arizona is supported by a grant from the Flinn Foundation.

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