A Cape Town company is in the final stages of a rapid test that will detect COVID-19 in saliva.

Medical Diagnostech is one of four companies roped in by the Department of Science and Innovation to develop diagnostic tests for the disease. The test will yield results within 15 minutes.

A saliva collector, basically a stick with a sponge attached, is used to get a sample from a person. The saturated sponge is then inserted into a tube.“What the tube does is then compresses the sponge and pushes the saliva through a column. What happens in the column is it excludes mucus by size exclusion and in a sense, it also concentrates all the viral proteins that we are targeting. That’s the reason why we use this column to collect the saliva and then we put it on the test kit.”

Medical Diagnostech managing director Ashley Uys said they had also developed a rapid antibody test for COVID-19, that is currently being evaluated by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA).

“That shows that you’ve been exposed to the virus, however, your body needs to react first to the virus in order to detect that it’s been present, so your immune system will then develop IgM antibodies, which are early stage infection antibodies and then it will develop IgG antibodies, so typically the test kits out there, the serological tests detect the antibodies.”

The saliva-based diagnostic kit will get another real-world test next week when it's rolled out at hospitals.

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