FDA Authorizes New Saliva Test For Covid-19 Coronavirus, NBA Tests It

SalivaDirect sounds like a bank that can quickly give you lots of saliva. But thankfully it isn’t.

Instead, it is a new saliva test to help diagnose a Covid-19 coronavirus infection. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for this test to the Yale School of Public Health. The test doesn’t check for the amount of saliva that you generate when someone asks you if you are infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus. Rather if you provide a sample of saliva in a sterile container, the SalivaDirect test can check for the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) genetic material.