FDA OKs Expedited Coronavirus Treatment Testing

WABE

February 6th, 2020

This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

CDC via AP

The Food and Drug Administration has signed off on expedited approval of a test for the novel coronavirus, a respiratory illness that has sickened nearly 25,000 people around the world.

That means samples from suspected cases in the U.S. will no longer have to be sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for testing.

Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Wednesday during a media telebriefing that test kits for the virus will now be sent to 200 state health labs in the United States and 100 selected international labs.

“What this means is that by the start of next week, we expect there to be much-enhanced capacity for laboratory testing closer to our patients,” Messonnier said.

So far, 260 people in the U.S. have been monitored for coronavirus. There are 12 confirmed cases in the U.S., including the latest reported by the Wisconsin health department Wednesday.

Messonnier also said Americans in China exposed to the coronavirus, including State Department employees are being evacuated to the U.S.

Four planes full of Americans who were in Wuhan, China, at the time of the outbreak, will be accepted into the U.S. this week.

Two of the jets, carrying about 350 Americans, landed at Travis Air Force Base in Sacramento, California, Wednesday. After refueling, one of the planes headed to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego.

The other two planes will take evacuees to Lackland Air Base in San Antonio, Texas, and Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.

“The travelers will be under a 14-day federal quarantine ordered by the CDC,” Messonnier said. “This legal order is intended to protect the travelers, their families and their communities.”

Messonnier said medical care will be made readily available, if needed, at the first onset of symptoms.

Last week 195 Americans were on the first government-chartered flight from Wuhan to the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California. Those passengers remain in quarantine at the base.