Abbott’s Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Receives WHO Clearance for Emergency Use Listing

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 06 Oct 2020

Abbott’s (Lake Forest, IL, USA) Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test has become the second rapid antigen test to be approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use listing.

On September 22, the WHO had approved the first COVID-19 rapid test produced by SD Biosensor (Korea). WHO records now show that the second rapid test to be cleared for emergency use listing is the Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test made by Abbott. Designed to scale up COVID-19 antigen testing and meant for patients suspected of current COVID-19 infection, the test requires no instrumentation and provides results in 15 minutes, making it a valuable tool for mass testing in decentralized settings.

Image: Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test (Photo courtesy of Abbott)

The kit contains a self-contained tube with "break off" swab to minimize staff exposure and a fully enclosed extraction tube for disposal. The Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test has a sensitivity of 93.3% and specificity of 99.4%

Abbott’s Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test provides an accessible, portable and scalable option for COVID-19 testing and can be deployed at point of care in a variety of settings. The test may also be useful for supporting public health strategies, such as contact tracing and large-scale testing of people suspected of having an active infection.