The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first Covid-19 tests for repeated, frequent use by consumers at home to screen for infections even if they don’t have symptoms.
The FDA late Wednesday gave the green light to three tests that are meant to be used frequently or multiple times over a few days—called serial tests. Consumers will be able to buy two of them over the counter without a prescription; the other, for use in such places as schools and doctors’ offices, requires a prescription. The FDA had previously authorized them for use among people with symptoms.
For almost a year, some U.S. public-health authorities have called for rapid Covid-19 tests that can quickly and frequently screen for the virus to help control the spread of the infection among people without symptoms. The FDA has already cleared a handful of tests that consumers can purchase over the counter and use at home. But they aren’t designated as serial tests and aren’t yet widely accessible.
Wednesday’s authorizations, awarded to companies with bulk manufacturing power, add to the tests that can be purchased over the counter among people without symptoms if they are used repeatedly, potentially enabling rapid, at-home testing to become more widely accessible and affordable.
“It’s putting control into the hands of Americans directly,” said Mara Aspinall, co-founder of the Biomedical Diagnostics program at Arizona State University. “This is a step forward. The FDA has been saying that they want to encourage more at-home tests. This is taking those words and making them very real.”
