Box Hill Hospital Emergency Department Initiates Trial Using FebriDx

Lumos Diagnostics (ASX: LDX), a leader in rapid point-of-care (POC) diagnostic technologies, today announced that the Emergency Department at Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, has initiated a 300-subject investigator-led trial using Lumos’ FebriDx® POC test to rapidly identify patients presenting with a suspected viral infection consistent with COVID-19. This study is based on a similar trial which was conducted at University Hospital Southampton, UK last year showing that FebriDx provides a useful tool for rapidly screening patients and results in improvements in the flow of respiratory illness patients within the emergency department setting.

Lumos’ FebriDx test is a rapid POC test based on two markers produced by the body in response to an infection: CRP, which is produced in response to any microbial infection, and MxA, which is only produced in response to viral infections. As a host-response test, FebriDx does not identify the specific infecting pathogen. However, the study conducted at University Hospital Southampton showed that FebriDx had a sensitivity of 93% and specificity of 86% for COVID-19 when compared to reference PCR testing. This translated into a negative predictive value (ability to rely on a negative result) of 93% for FebriDx in their population.

“A rapid and reliable rule-out test for COVID-19 would be an extremely valuable aid for the many Australian Emergency Departments that are currently struggling to cope with an ever-increasing demand for their services,” stated Dr Paul Buntine, Director of Emergency Medicine Research at Eastern Health. “Although we are yet to see how it performs in the current environment, FebriDx has potential advantages over rapid antigen-based COVID-19 tests that are very good at ruling in COVID-19 infection but not so good at ruling it out.”

The screening process currently used at Box Hill Hospital uses a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test that usually takes several hours for a result to be available. Lumos’ FebriDx test is able to provide a result in 10 minutes that accurately identifies patients with a viral infection for follow up pathogen-specific testing.

FebriDx is authorized to identify and differentiate viral from bacterial acute respiratory infection; its use for the specific diagnosis of COVID-19 is not authorized.