A COVID-19 saliva test developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign may be the type of rapid testing needed for mass testing, rapid results and rapid contract tracing to get ahead of the spread of the coronavirus in the state and perhaps throughout the nation. The test is being used at the U. of I. lab under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization.
“Illinois’ saliva test is less expensive, faster and requires significantly less raw materials than traditional testing. Even among the very few saliva tests available globally, it’s one of the least expensive and potentially one of the potentially most effective now on the market,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said.
“If ongoing research continues to yield positive results, this has potentially game-changing implications for our statewide testing complex, as well as for testing on a national level. Particularly for our high-risk communities and settings, this type of scalable product would allow us to mass deploy testing and better track and contain the spread of COVID-19.”
Pritzker and university leaders made the announcement about the SHIELD saliva test at the governor’s press briefing on August 19.
“The pioneering saliva-based testing developed by our leading researchers in Urbana produces rapid results at costs that allow large scale surveillance testing,” President of the University of Illinois System Timothy L. Killeen said. “That combination is key to curbing the virus, allowing isolation early enough to limit the spread of the infection, and it also identifies and isolates people with asymptomatic cases who would otherwise spread the virus unknowingly.”
Killeen said the work of its researchers has also been behind epidemiological modeling the governor used to enact lifesaving stay-at-home orders. He said the saliva test is the cornerstone of what they call the “Shield” program that is allowing us to open its three universities for in-person instruction.
Three universities, Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield, comprise the U. of I. System. With the new saliva test, the system expects to be able to test up to 20,000 people per day with the fall semester beginning on August 24.
“We’re already working to deploy this to more public universities across the state over the next weeks and months and exploring rolling this out to do testing potentially for k-12 schools and even more testing at our long-term care facilities as well,” Pritzker said.
In addition to public and private institutions across the state, Killeen said they are also working on marketing the saliva-based rapid testing technology nationwide.
