Hundreds of people waiting on COVID-19 tests will now receive accurate, same-day results thanks to equipment normally used to ensure the health of poultry and swine.

MAWD Pathology is expanding its ability to provide COVID-19 test results using DNA sequencing equipment on loan from Ceva Animal Health.

With cases rising in the region, MAWD needed to expand capabilities immediately. However, the lead-time to purchase this type of equipment is long. To obtain the diagnostic tools needed to expand testing right away, the pathology group had to think creatively.

“When we first set up testing, our focus was on helping the local hospitals who were seeing far fewer patients with concerns for COVID19. Reagents were available and our technologists had time so we started with a manual nucleic acid extraction process,” said Dr Caughron. “With the rapid rise in the number of patients at local hospitals needing to be tested, as well as strong interest from more facilities in the area and the need to test emergency personnel and other Priority 2 patients, we realised quickly we needed to increase our capacity.”

Ceva laboratories use these tools on a regular basis. However, it was an easy decision to lend these for use in human health. The instruments Ceva is lending are considered the gold standard for this type of diagnostic process in both humans and animals.

“Ceva is solely focused on developing products for animal health. However, we know the health of humans and animals is interdependent. Our One Health mindset means we always take an interdisciplinary approach to solving health problems. We are fortunate that our current work load could be adjusted to free up these instruments for human testing during the pandemic,” said John El-Attrache, Global Director of Scientific and Innovation Direction at Ceva.

“MAWD and the Kansas City community owe Ceva a huge thank you for providing the equipment so quickly for MAWD to scale up testing,” said Dr Caughron.