Government secures up to 20 million Covid quick testing kits

The Government has secured up to 20 million 15-minute testing kits, ready to be fast-tracked to Covid-19 hotspots.

The new lateral flow technology could be used to provide rapid results at venues such as airports, theatres and other public venues.

Officials plan to distribute the tests to local public health teams in areas of high transmission, in the first instance.

They will also be made available to hospitals, care homes, schools and universities, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

The Telegraph can reveal that the government has struck a deal to purchase millions of kits, after the technology was validated at Public Health England’s (PHE) Porton Down facility.

A source familiar with the arrangement described it as a “game changer” that promised “a return to normal life”.

The roll-out of the technology has been hailed by health select committee chairman Jeremy Hunt as “potentially the most significant news we have heard in the fight against the virus for many weeks”.

The Innova SARS-Cov-2 Antigen Test, manufactured by Innova Tried and Tested, is less complicated than the standard PCR test, meaning tests can be processed at venues in the community, rather than needing to be sent to high tech labs.

Its relative simplicity also reduces the need for a cold storage logistics chain.

It currently uses the same swab method of obtaining samples, but it is understood Innova is working to convert it to detect Covid-19 in saliva samples, which could speed it up further.

A source said the £15 test had shown 100 per cent specificity (the ability to correctly identify a positive sample) and 96 per cent sensitivity, which is the ability to correctly identify a negative sample.

Addressing Parliament on Monday, Mr Hancock said: “We are rolling them out across hospitals and care homes, to test patients and residents yet more regularly to help keep people safe.

"And for schools and universities, so we can keep education open safely through the winter.

“These tests have shown real promise, and we are both buying them now, and ramping up our ability to produce them, at scale, right here in the UK.”

The Government has already set a target of 500,000 tests a day by the end of October and ministers spent more than £500 million in the last two weeks on laboratory-based machines that could more than triple the Government's capacity of 300,000 tests a day.