SINGAPORE: Newly developed COVID-19 test kits will be used to test swab samples collected at Singapore’s checkpoints from Thursday (Mar 5), promising results within three hours.
A collaboration between the Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX) and Verdus Laboratories, the HTX COVID-19 test kit has an accuracy of more than 99 per cent and is able to test for a result in three hours, said HTX in an information sheet.
The test kit has provisional authorisation from the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and can be used directly by laboratories or hospitals to test patients for clinical diagnosis, said HTX.
This is faster than test kits deployed at hospitals, which not only tests for the presence of COVID-19 but the severity of it.
Swab samples are couriered from Singapore’s land, sea and air checkpoints and transported to the HTX lab at the Pasir Panjang Scanning Station. The lab can handle up 200 samples a day, with a team of about 20 scientists on rotation.
A three-step process occurs at the laboratory. Scientists first extract the sample’s RNA (ribonucleic acid). This RNA is then converted into DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) before a process known as polymerase chain reaction takes place. This helps to amplify the signal of the virus within the sample so that it is more detectable.