Britain says aiming to roll-out millions of coronavirus tests in months

Britain said on Wednesday it aimed to roll-out millions of coronavirus tests in months after criticism that it had moved too slowly on the issue, adding that a partnership with private firms would help it hit 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.

England's Chief Medical Officer conceded on Tuesday that there were lessons to learn from Germany on testing. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson while he is in hospital with COVID-19, has said Britain is making progress to its daily testing target but there was "more work to do."

The Department of Health said that a new testing laboratory set-up by AstraZeneca, GSK and Cambridge University would aim to carry out 30,000 tests a day by May, and Thermo Fisher would continue to supply the UK with testing kits and aim to scale up manufacturing. Government testing adviser John Newton said the 100,000 daily test target was feasible, and that 20,000 National Health Service workers had already been tested.

"Testing capacity now is not what we would like, but it is by no means inconsiderable in terms of what we need," Newton told lawmakers on Wednesday. "We do anticipate that the need will increase dramatically, and therefore we want to get as much testing in place as possible."

The government also said a business consortium had launched plans to develop an antibody test, in order to detect those who have been infected with COVID-19 and therefore had immunity. Newton said he did not expect such tests to be widely available by the end of April and would not rely on them to contribute to the target, even though some laboratory-based antibody tests were beginning to come on stream.

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