Now you can check your self for flu and COVID-19 at dwelling

TThe U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) simply issued its first emergency use authorization for a house check that may inform customers if they’ve both the flu, COVID-19, or each.

The February 24 determination comes as extra individuals embrace the concept of ​​testing themselves at dwelling to get fast diagnoses for COVID-19. Public well being officers, too, have more and more warmed as much as at-home testing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

However with so many overlapping signs between COVID-19 and the flu, docs and the general public have used a fast COVID-19 check to rule out SARS-COV-2 an infection. If it is destructive, they could assume the signs are from the flu.

Now you’ll be able to perceive with larger certainty what’s inflicting your signs. The FDA’s emergency use authorization for the check carried out by Lucira works the identical because the fast at-home antigen exams for COVID-19. Sufferers take the supplied swab within the package to swab their nostril after which place the tip in an answer that gives leads to about 30 minutes. The check is designed to detect two sorts of influenza viruses, A and B, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The exams are anticipated to roll out quickly and can be found and not using a prescription on the identical areas the place at-home COVID-19 exams are distributed.

In response to FDA-reviewed information, the check appropriately recognized 90.1% of constructive influenza A samples, 99.9% of destructive influenza B samples, and 88.3% of constructive COVID-19 samples. There are at present not sufficient circumstances of influenza B for the examine, so the FDA requires Lucira to proceed documenting the check’s capability to detect one of these flu as soon as the check is obtainable to the general public.

Figuring out which virus you could have can pace up therapy – influenza and COVID-19 are brought on by several types of viruses and are due to this fact handled with totally different antiviral therapies.

The FDA urges individuals to share their findings with their physician, whether or not constructive or destructive, to obtain probably the most acceptable therapy. If each exams are destructive, docs can check for and deal with different infectious illnesses.

The double check is a sign that well being officers are reassured by the uptake and use of the COVID-19 self-tests, which have been the primary for an infectious illness, and are prepared to contemplate increasing the vary of exams persons are doing themselves can carry out .

Extra dwelling exams combining flu, COVID-19, and even RSV — one other infectious illness that primarily impacts younger kids and the aged — are additionally on the horizon.

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