The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) has created a comprehensive, national covid-19 diagnostic supply registry to help state and federal governments in their pandemic responses. The national registry is being launched in partnership with 13 commercial diagnostics manufacturers: Abbott, BD, bioMérieux, Bio-Rad, Beckman Coulter, Cepheid, Hologic, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Qiagen, Roche Diagnostics, Sekisui Diagnostics, Siemens Healthineers, and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
The registry’s first publicly released data set shows that since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 65 million tests have been manufactured and shipped nationwide, with test shipments now topping 800,000 daily.
“It is absolutely vital to our nation’s health and economic recovery that we have sufficient supplies to test everyone who needs it, and, just as important, to know where these supplies are so we can get them where they are most needed,” says Scott Whitaker, president and CEO of AdvaMed. “This national registry will be a crucial tool for federal and state authorities as they work to protect both patients and health care providers and move to reopen the US economy.”
The registry will compile information from diagnostic companies along with publicly available data on daily tests performed to create a centralized and standardized covid-19 diagnostic supply registry. The registry will provide weekly state- and national-level updates on the number of molecular, antigen, and serology (antibody) tests shipped in the United States.
AdvaMed’s registry will help streamline communications and data sharing between diagnostic companies and federal and state governments as well as standardize test supply reporting. It will also facilitate collaboration with laboratories and other public health stakeholders to optimize access to all platforms of covid-19 testing so that any potential shortages are identified and addressed quickly.
For more information, visit AdvaMed.
Featured image: Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (purple) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID.
