Tests will be be particularly useful during flu season because the tests can help distinguish between the flu and COVID-19<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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TUESDAY, Oct. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The Biden administration on Monday announced a $70 million program to help the makers of rapid at-home COVID-19 tests get U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval more quickly, in a move meant to boost availability of the tests and cut their cost.<\/p>\n
The National Institutes of Health program will help manufacturers produce the data required by the FDA and will also identify tests with the potential for large-scale production and distribution, The Washington Post<\/em> reported. The program is part of a wider White House effort to tackle shortages of at-home rapid tests, which can help people make decisions about going to work or school or participating in other activities.<\/p>\n Compared with people in parts of Europe and Asia, Americans have far less access to such tests, which may be particularly useful during what experts predict may be a bad flu season because the tests can help distinguish between the flu and COVID-19, The Post<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n It is expected that the Biden administration will soon finalize a rule requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to require workers to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. At-home testing could play a vital role in that rule, which is expected to cover 100 million employees, The Post<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n “This is all extremely good news, and I love that they are expanding the validation efforts so that there won’t just be more tests, but high-quality tests,” Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, told The Post<\/em>. “Unfortunately, testing is one of those things that we can’t just leave up to the market to decide — things could change in the pandemic that make testing more or less a priority for individuals.”<\/p>\n