Seeking to protect Americans and those who are treating them in every community, the coronavirus task force is calling on U.S. unversities to jump in by this Friday to help test all healthcare workers.
"We owe it to the front-line healthcare providers – not only to provide them RNA tests, but many of them have been on the front line now for four weeks, may have become exposed, we now know of asymptomic [spread] – I think really being able to tell them, the peace of mind that would come from knowing, you already were infected, you have antibody, you're safe from reinfection 99.9% of the time," Dr. Deborah Birx of the coronavirus task force told reporters Wednesday.
"This, I think, would be very reassuring to our front-line healthcare workers, and our universities can do that by Friday. I am putting that challenge to them.
"So, we're not waiting; we're asking for help now."
An RNA test is a blood test for genetic material to determine HIV and now COVID-19 exposure, and Birx has spoken to U.S. universities to lean in on helping develop enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay tests, known as ELISA tests.
"Right now we are in talks with a whole series of universities," she said. "We have the most brilliant scientists in the world in our universities in state after state – some of them public-health universities, some of them basic science. All of them have received NIH grants for HIV or other development of assays in the past.
"I have talked to a lot of them over the last few days to really ask them to develop these simple ELISA tests that could be used rapidly in their healthcare centers. It's easy to do; we've all developed ELISAs."
The game-changer in this is all local universities can do this quickly, by Friday even, to inform healthcare workers of their COVID-19 exposure. This would also be very important development for workers at U.S. nursing homes, where the most vulnerable to the virus live and receive care.
"So, in a day or two, after development, they can screen their entire hospital," she said. "I think that would be very reassuring to the healthcare workers who have been on the front line. We worry about them every day.
"So, I've really called on every university in every state to develop ELISAs. You can buy the antigens and the controls online and really work to test entire healthcare communities in your states and support them that way."