Rapid £10 coronavirus tests for bubbles of 10 asymptomatic people launched

DnaNudge is offering the Covid-19 test on one cartridge for ‘bubbles’ of up to 10 people who are not showing symptoms of the disease.

A staff member shows a kit to a customer at a self administered Covid-19 testing site in London earlier this year (EPA-EFE)

A rapid £10 coronavirus test that can return results in just over an hour has been launched by a British company.

DnaNudge is offering a Covid-19 test on one cartridge for ‘bubbles’ of up to 10 people who are not showing symptoms of the disease.

The company today confirmed the PCR test, which looks for evidence the virus is in your body, is open for online booking at its store in Covent Garden, London. 

People attending a booking in the capital will be required to provide a sputum (phlegm) sample and then can expect the results in just over an hour.

The company will also launch a home test by post in the coming weeks that will give the results by text message, like the in-store test.

DnaNudge CEO and co-founder Regius Professor Chris Toumazou said: “Ever since this global crisis began and the scale of the public health challenge began to be recognised, DnaNudge has worked alongside front-line clinicians and tirelessly diverted our skills and energies into developing this DnaNudge COVID test that, today, is successfully boosting the country’s rapid testing capacity and helping to improve patient and staff safety right across the NHS. 

"By making this transformative test more widely accessible, at very low-cost, our aim is to help improve the detection of asymptomatic yet infectious individuals and to support the huge effort to bring this virus under control and move us all forwards toward safety and a return to normality as soon as we possibly can.”

The test is available for people without symptoms looking for reassurance about whether they could be infectious or those who need to confirm their COVID-19 status before travelling abroad.

The company is also rolling out 5.8 million rapid CovidNudge kits across NHS to help with testing capacity across the country.

A paper published by peer-reviewed journal The Lancet Microbe said that the test delivers highly accurate results, with an average sensitivity – the ability to correctly identify those with COVID-19 – of 94.4% compared against standard NHS lab-based tests, and a specificity – correctly identifying those without the disease – of 100%, meaning no false positives.