A senior health body has warned the Government about the risks associated with the sale of Covid-19 antibody testing devices directly to the public.
Professor Jo Martin from the Royal College of Pathologists said her organisation was “concerned” that such devices, intended for solely for professional use, were being offered for sale to consumers “without the required reassurance of appropriate laboratory or professional back up”.
The college has written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, with Prof Martin adding in a statement: “The use of these for unsupervised self use test falls outside current regulations, and can mislead the public and put individuals at risk.
“We want everyone to be assured about the tests they receive in healthcare, or that they purchase.
“We want to make sure that not only are they are of good quality, but that they give the right result and that the result is properly readable – that they are appropriately ‘useable’.”
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The college called for “urgent steps” to be taken to support enforcement and public safety where testing devices were being used unregulated.
BBC’s Newsnight reported an analysis of 41 antibodies tests sold to the public in Britain showed almost a third had inaccurate and incomplete information.
Last month an international team of researchers wrote in The BMJ that there was an “urgent need” for better quality studies assessing the effectiveness of Covid-19 antibody tests.
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