BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new test that can rapidly detect COVID-19 within minutes.
According to the creators of the test, Abbott Laboratories, their testing kit can detect positive results within 5 minutes and negative results within 13 minutes.
According to the FDA's website, an Emergency Use Authorization for the test was approved on Friday.
The company states their test is different than what's currently in the market because it can be used "outside the four walls of a traditional hospital such as in the physician's office or urgent care clinics."
"Because of its small size, it can be used in more non-traditional places where people can have their results in a matter of minutes, bringing an alternate testing technology to combat the novel coronavirus," the company's website states.
The company says it plans to send 50,000 testing kits per day to the U.S. healthcare system beginning next week.
