Covid-19: UK regulator approves lateral flow test for home use despite accuracy concerns

The UK’s regulator has approved the Innova lateral flow covid-19 test for people to self-administer despite warnings from some testing experts that it is inaccurate and may give people a false sense of security.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that it had issued authorisation to the Department of Health and Social Care on 23 December to allow the use of the antigen lateral flow test for home testing to “detect infection in asymptomatic individuals.”

“A negative test result means that the test has not detected the presence of the covid-19 virus, at the time the test was taken,” it said. “Anyone receiving a negative …