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JUL 28, 2020
NEW YORK/GENEVA, JULY 28, 2020—Cepheid, a US company that produces rapid, point-of care COVID-19 tests, is prioritizing high-income countries at the expense of people in low resource settings, said Doctors Without Borders/M?decins Sans Fronti?res (MSF) today. The international medical humanitarian organization called on Cepheid to allocate these urgently needed COVID-19 tests equitably and affordably across all countries.
“As countries are struggling to deal with suspected COVID-19 cases, having an accurate rapid diagnostic test is essential for real-time management of people affected with the virus in order to tackle this pandemic,” said Dr. Greg Elder, medical coordinator for MSF's Access Campaign. “So many lives could be saved if corporations like Cepheid made their tests available urgently and affordably in all countries.”
MSF is also calling on Cepheid to refrain from profiteering off of the pandemic and lower the price of each test, called Xpert Xpress SARS-COV2, from the nearly $20 it currently charges to $5.
Cepheid—which developed the COVID-19 test with $3.7 million in public funding from the United States government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an office under the Department of Health and Human Services—has currently set the price for each test at $19.80 in 145 developing countries, including the world’s poorest countries where people live on less than two dollars per day.
... The World Health Organization “Diagnostics Consortium” was set up in March 2020 to support rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 health products and diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries. While the Consortium secured volume commitments from major diagnostic test manufacturers—Abbott, Cepheid, Roche, and Thermo Fisher—for a period of four months, the number of tests committed from Cepheid represented only one-third of its COVID-19 test manufacturing capacity. As a result, less than half of countries’ orders into the Consortium have been fulfilled.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.or...-covid-19-test
NEW YORK/GENEVA, JULY 28, 2020—Cepheid, a US company that produces rapid, point-of care COVID-19 tests, is prioritizing high-income countries at the expense of people in low resource settings, said Doctors Without Borders/M?decins Sans Fronti?res (MSF) today. The international medical humanitarian organization called on Cepheid to allocate these urgently needed COVID-19 tests equitably and affordably across all countries.
“As countries are struggling to deal with suspected COVID-19 cases, having an accurate rapid diagnostic test is essential for real-time management of people affected with the virus in order to tackle this pandemic,” said Dr. Greg Elder, medical coordinator for MSF's Access Campaign. “So many lives could be saved if corporations like Cepheid made their tests available urgently and affordably in all countries.”
MSF is also calling on Cepheid to refrain from profiteering off of the pandemic and lower the price of each test, called Xpert Xpress SARS-COV2, from the nearly $20 it currently charges to $5.
Cepheid—which developed the COVID-19 test with $3.7 million in public funding from the United States government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an office under the Department of Health and Human Services—has currently set the price for each test at $19.80 in 145 developing countries, including the world’s poorest countries where people live on less than two dollars per day.
... The World Health Organization “Diagnostics Consortium” was set up in March 2020 to support rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 health products and diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries. While the Consortium secured volume commitments from major diagnostic test manufacturers—Abbott, Cepheid, Roche, and Thermo Fisher—for a period of four months, the number of tests committed from Cepheid represented only one-third of its COVID-19 test manufacturing capacity. As a result, less than half of countries’ orders into the Consortium have been fulfilled.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.or...-covid-19-test