With all what technology has done for us in such a short span, it gets hard to construct an argument against it. The way it has managed to quickly climb up the ladder of significance in our lives might feel a little absurd at first. However, the whole progression justifies itself when you look around and observe different tech products coming together to simplify things at an unprecedented rate. This unbeatable ease of it was exactly what had convinced us to promote technology from a mere luxury. In our bid to make the most of its ability, we made a decision to integrate tech principles in several areas, and as it turns out, this ingenious creation can do a lot. Without even realizing, we went on to switch the dynamics for ourselves, paving the way for an era that would be, more or less, spearheaded by technology. There would be many beneficiaries of this move, but one that stands-out on its own has to be the medical field. With all the tech ammo at the sector’s disposal, the healthcare industry kickstarted a journey to change people’s perception about it, and safe to say, the journey has been wholly successful. However, we did go through a few moments where we felt forced to doubt the prospects of MedTech. One such moment is too recent to ignore.
The Food and Drug Administration of US has issued a formal alert in the regards to Abbott Covid 19 test kits delivering a flurry of false positive results. As per the reports, there were 2 test kits in particular that FDA pointed out in their statement, both of them being the by-products of Abbott’s association with Alinity. Interestingly, FDA had provided the testing kits in question with full clearance in the past, but as the number of false positive cases goes up astronomically, the authority has now advised people to consider test results from Alinity as ‘presumptive’. In fact, FDA is encouraging individuals to retest, if they have gotten a positive result using an Abbott kit at any point after June 2021.
“The false positive results may be related to current mixing parameters of the PCR reaction mixture that may result in potential overflow that could carry over into neighboring wells in the assay reagent tray,” FDA explained in the statement.
The implications of Abbott coming under scrutiny could be greater due to the company’s status as a supplier to clinical laboratories. Even major names like Curative have been relying on Abbott’s testing capabilities after their own kits started providing misleading results. Hence, it remains to be seen how the diagnostic industry handles the situation amidst the emergence of a new delta variant.
