NEW YORK – Viracor Eurofins and the National Kidney Registry (NKR) announced Tuesday a partnership to provide SARS-CoV-2 testing to the registry's network of member centers.
Thousands of Viracor Eurofins' test kits will be offered to NKR member centers by Thursday. They can be used to test living donors, recipients of living donor organs, and recipients of deceased donor organs, NKR said. The partnership aims to increase transplant safety for donors and recipients who are immunosuppressed and particularly vulnerable to the virus, the organizations added.
NKR serves about 100 transplant programs in the US and has relied on Viracor Eurofins' specialty transplantation laboratories.
The test, called the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test, is a real-time, reverse transcriptase PCR assay for the qualitative detection of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. It was made available last week after validation in accordance with the US Food and Drug Administration's Emergency Use Authorization guidance. The turnaround time for the test is 12 to 18 hours from the receipt of specimen and the company can currently run around 1,000 tests per day.