AN OXFORD biotech company's portable 90-minute coronavirus test has been found to be highly accurate.

Scientists from Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine have published their evaluation of the LamPORE test, which is able to process swab and saliva samples to detect the presence of Covid-19.

It showed the test has the same sensitivity as the widely-used PCR swab test, but can be used to process swabs in labs, as well as on-location through pop-up labs.

The technology from Oxford Nanopore has the potential to analyse thousands of samples per day on a single instrument.

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The scientists used RNA extracted from two types of samples, initially, mock samples formed of saliva from people without infection that had a known quantity of virus added to it.

They then used nose and throat swabs from real Covid-19 patients at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The positive clinical specimens came mostly from patients with symptomatic infection, and among these LamPORE had a diagnostic sensitivity of 99.1 per cent.

The evaluation was led by Professor Derrick Crook, who said: “This evaluation shows that LamPORE offers a promising approach to high-throughput testing.”