Simple and quick home tests that you can do several times a week to check if you are infected, maybe it can stop the spread of infection. At least that is what some researchers claim. But the uncertainty is great and so far only Slovakia has done something similar.
Simple home tests can be a way to stop future pandemics, some researchers say. Virus tests that are so cheap that everyone can do them several times a week, can make the person who is contagious really stay at home and not take chances or neglect – believe among others Björn Högberg, professor of biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, who has studied this the model.
– You take a swab sample in the nose or throat. If you have virus particles in you, then they will stick to this test line.
It’s called antigen test and somewhat reminiscent of a regular pregnancy test – a plastic stick with a small window where after ten to fifteen minutes a clear line appears if you are contagious. The tests are not one hundred percent, but they are relatively good at seeing if and when you are infected, because they give results just when you excrete a lot of viruses.
The idea is that everyone should be able to test themselves regularly so that those who become infected should isolate themselves.
Today, FHM recommends that the rapid tests are used in healthcare and the elderly, and there are divided opinions among researchers and authorities as to whether it makes sense to use them on such a large scale, at the population level.
Björn Högberg’s colleagues have done model studies that theoretically show that you can suppress the infection, even if not everyone shows up and even if the test is not one hundred percent.
The method has so far only been tested on a large scale in one case, in Slovakia last year, where the infection went down. But it is unclear exactly what effect the mass tests had, since other measures were taken at the same time. Despite this, Björn Högberg thinks that we could do this already now to learn before the coming pandemics.
But can you really get everyone to put a stick down their throat several times a week?
– It is probably a question of what we can imagine doing, I mean a hundred years ago then people thought it was extremely uncomfortable to brush their teeth. But it has, as it were, been accepted today that one should do so. It may well be similar, says Björn Högberg, professor of biophysics at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
You can hear more about mass tests and other suggestions on how we should handle the pandemics of the future in Vetenskapsradion På Djupet.