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Precious Metals
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General Market Commentary
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General Precious Metals
Gold has a role to play in Covid-19 testing toolbox
Gold is being used in new Covid-19 rapid tests around the world, which identify the presence of biomarkers from the body’s immune response to Covid-19 instead of looking for the virus itself.
The tests can also help detect if a person has been infected with Covid-19 even after the virus is no longer present.
In a blog post on March 17, World Gold Council (WGC) consultant Trevor Keel explained that tiny spherical particles of gold have been used as “indicators” in lateral flow assays (LFAs) for over 40 years.
In terms of the Covid-19 pandemic, at the time of the blog post, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics’ (FIND) Covid-19 database had detailed almost 200 diagnostics which were either commercially available or in development, and it had also announced two evaluation programmes which would help ensure data on the performance of the key tests were available to healthcare authorities worldwide.
Keel explained that the majority of these tests were lab-based (so-called molecular diagnostics), but increasing numbers of first-generation biomarker LFAs were being registered and evaluated, many of which are gold-based.
Companies are also now developing LFAs that can identify the virus directly, indicated Keel.
Speaking to Mining Weekly, Keel enthused that the capability to indicate if someone has potentially already fought off a virus via antibody testing offers a number of benefits.
The test itself is straightforward to administer, therefore, specific communities or populations can be checked rapidly, allowing large datasets to be gathered and analysed.
Moreover, the tests can be performed anywhere, with results available within 10 to 15 minutes.
“LFAs are among the simplest medical diagnostics to run, and require no specialist infrastructure or personnel to perform or analyse,” acclaimed Keel.