Last week, some healthcare companies in the U.S. announced that they would start selling home-made coronavirus tests as part of the ‘do it yourself’ project, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the tests in question were not licensed and its use is strongly discouraged. Everlywell, a company that sells homemade test diagnostic kits for all kinds of ailments, from Food Sensitivity (Intolerance) to Hepatitis C, announced on Monday that it plans to offer a COVID-19 test kit that allows customers to take their mucus samples and send them to a lab. Making a new statement following the decision of the FDA, the company stated that they will only supply coronavirus tests to hospitals and healthcare facilities for now. The FDA has previously made it easier for many healthcare companies to develop commercial coronavirus tests, including those using laboratories that have been validated by Clinical Laboratory Improvement Changes (CLIA), which is the standard for all clinical laboratory tests performed on humans in the U.S. Now many consumer-focused healthcare companies, such as Scanwell, Carbon Health and Nurx, have had to stop selling homemade COVID-19 tests to the public. Some companies, such as New York-based Radish Health, have decided to completely stop test sales. Stating that US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should be followed and those with COVID-19 symptoms should contact the nearest healthcare institution, the FDA calls for the purchase of homemade kits that promise to diagnose through mucus.
