The Food and Drug Administration is alerting Us residents to the probable hazards of at-home COVID-19 assessments after obtaining reports of people egregiously misusing them, resulting in accidents.
In a basic safety conversation unveiled Friday, the Food and drug administration explained it experienced acquired reviews of accidents right after people today made use of the kits’ liquid test remedy as eye drops or trapped the resolution up their noses. “The liquid check answer is not intended to touch your human body,” the Fda wrote sternly. The agency also described that some youngsters experienced been injured after placing take a look at elements in their mouths and swallowing the resolution.
“The liquid answers may possibly involve chemical components, this kind of as sodium azide, that help the test perform effectively or act as preservatives,” the Fda wrote. “The check chemical compounds can be irritating or harmful if they get on your pores and skin, nose, or eyes or if they are swallowed.”
At-home exams all have marginally distinctive protocols, but they normally require combining a take a look at solution and nasal swab samplings on a test card. In Abbott’s preferred BinaxNow check, for example, individuals are instructed to set six drops of a check solution on to a testing card. Then take a look at-takers swab their noses, insert the swab into the primed check card, seal the card, and hold out 15 minutes for success. In the iHealth COVID-19 test, exam-takers swab their noses, swirl the swab in a take a look at answer, then squeeze 3 drops of the resolution on to a test card and wait around for success.
According to the Fda, some people today have put the test option onto the swab in advance of swabbing their nose, resulting in the take a look at answer becoming swirled all-around their nostrils.
It’s unclear how lots of people have been injured by these testing snafus or how critical their accidents were being. Having said that, the Food and drug administration would like you to halt it. The agency recommends that anyone maintain their take a look at kits out of get to of pets and modest children. Once you are all set to use your package, read through the directions and adhere to them. The company also helpfully recommends that you “retain the liquid alternative absent from the pores and skin, nose, mouth, and eyes. Do not swallow the liquid remedy,” and “use only the swab in the examination kit to accumulate a nasal sample.”
“Food and drug administration approved at-home COVID-19 tests have come to be an essential and easy instrument that men and women can use to verify if they or a family member are at this time contaminated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” the regulator notes. They’re also perfectly harmless to use—when you comply with the directions.