FDA Approves New Ebola Test for Emergency Use

The FDA has provided Emergency Use Authorization, a pre-approval for use in bad outbreaks, for Roche's new Ebola test, the LightMix Ebola Zaire rRT-PCR Test.

The test, which works by detecting the signs of the Ebola virus on a genetic level, works in about three hours. There are sevenral other rRT-PCR tests that also detect the virus at a genetic level and have received this kind of emergency approval from the FDA. Since they detect the DNA of the virus, they're very accurate.

Why approve multiple tests? The consoles that run these kinds of diagnostics are expensive, so a brand-specific test might not be universally usable by hospitals around the US.

Read more at The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1HWiUuG