View
comments
Australians will finally be able to take a Covid test themselves without leaving their house, with the results available in just 20 minutes.
Rapid antigen tests - which can be self-performed and have been used in many other countries since the start of the year - will be available in Australia from November 1.
The current PCR tests require a medical professional to administer resulting in long queues stretching hundreds of metres at testing centres around the country, with results being processed in laboratories.
The rapid antigen tests (pictured) provide a much quicker way to tests for Covid than traditional PCR tests
The tests have been used in other countries for months but their release in Australia was delayed until vaccination rates increased (file image)
But that will no longer be the case, and neither will waiting days in quarantine for a negative test which the result confirmed in under half-an-hour.
The specific versions of the rapid antigen test kits still need to be approved for use by the consumer health product watchdog the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
TGA head professor John Skerrit said they were working with state and territory leaders to quickly get the tests approved for use and a review of the data was in progress.
'It is anticipated that 70 per cent of Australians across the country will be double vaccinated, triggering phase B of the National plan by the end of October,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
'Therefore a new regulation will be made … permitting the sale and use of home tests after November 1 2021.'
The test have previously been available in Australia but under the condition they are administered by a health worker.
Overseas the kits, which look like pregnancy tests, have been in use for many months to assist with the safe returning to workplaces as well as overseas travel.
So readily available are the tests in Britain, that people have started taking them before visiting elderly relatives or going on
