Fast, reliable, on-site COVID testing now available for New Zealand businesses

COVID as a business continuity risk has seen a growing number of New Zealand companies use a locally manufactured RT-PCR device to implement their own surveillance regimes.

Ubiquitome’s Liberty16 real time PCR has United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use approval when paired with SalivaDirect™, a sample collection protocol from Yale University’s School of Public Health.

Testing using the Liberty16 takes about two hours from prepping the saliva sample to the result shown on an iPhone app.

Companies like NZX-listed Napier Port, Endoscopy Auckland, and one of NZ’s largest exporters of pulp and timber, Winstone Pulp International (WPI), have been deploying the combination as a first response layer for several months.

Napier Port CEO Todd Dawson says the fast, practical and highly-accurate screening is exactly the type of solution businesses need to buffer them from Omicron, but had been lost in the poor planning and politics surrounding rapid antigen tests.

“The lack of availability of on-the-ground testing, constrained supplies, and government ministries commandeering future supplies, compounds the problem for businesses,” he says. “Supply chains are already under pressure, and with the potential for Omicron to take out vast swaths of people from the workforce, having no testing capability onsite to help minimise spread or clear workers to return to work, is a big problem and one that could have been easily avoided with some advanced planning.”

Adam Harvey, general manager marine and cargo operations at Napier Port, says the Liberty16 has become an essential business continuity tool to deal with the threat of COVID to disrupting the port.

“We first acquired the Liberty16s in September, spent a month training and have been doing around 1,000 tests a week since November, ” Harvey says. “We have been testing our 330-strong workforce and about 50 close contract contractors every second day, but now with Omicron in the community, we are testing daily.

“So far, we have not had any cases show up, which reflects the situation on the ground in Hawke’s Bay. However, we are running a well-oiled machine and built in the capacity to increase testing and we can isolate any person that shows up non-negative, and his or her close contacts, and then connect to diagnostic testing.”

Harvey says as well as running the ports own surveillance he has responded to around 50 other big companies to share the port’s experienced with the Liberty16. And he has helped five other Hawke’s Bay companies put in their own Liberty16s.

“It is essentially about business continuity and early detection is vital,” he says. “Using the saliva sample is the key to strong compliance by our workers.”

A paper published under open access on January 18 by Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, reports Ubiquitome’s Liberty16 system was developed as an inexpensive, portable, battery-operated single-channel RT-qPCR device with an associated iPhone app to simplify assay set-up and data reporting.

“When coupled with the SalivaDirect™ protocol for testing saliva samples for SARS-CoV-2, the Liberty16 device yielded a limit of detection (LOD) of 12 SARS-CoV-2 RNA copies/µL, comparable to the upper end of the LOD range for the standard SalivaDirect protocol when performed on larger RT-qPCR instruments.”

The report concludes: “While further optimization may deliver even greater sensitivity and assay speed, this initial study indicates that small portable devices such as the Liberty16 can deliver reliable results and provide the opportunity to further increase access to gold standard testing capability.”

Endoscopy Auckland started its Liberty16 surveillance late last year. Surgeon associate professor John Dunn, founder and director of the private hospital, says every patient is tested a day before their admission and staff are tested twice a week.

“PCR is the gold standard for Covid detection and straightforward saliva collection is the easiest, quickest, most accurate and least invasive technique,” Dunn says. “Why it is not more widely adopted in NZ remains a mystery.

“Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) lack sensitivity and in my opinion are simply an expedient poor second choice that will miss many cases. They are not good enough for our environment in healthcare.

“Our PCR programme is hugely appreciated by staff and patients who know with a high degree of certainty, as they walk in, that no one in the building has the virus.

“These are NZ machines using a Yale-based Kiwi scientist’s protocol and it’s brilliant.”

Another company, Winston Pulp International near Ohakune, is monitoring its saw mill and pulp mill sites with Ubiquitome’s device.

Rodney Gutsell, technical services manager, says WPI has four Liberty16s deployed for surveillance after training with Ubiquitome was completed. WPI has the capacity to run 300 tests a day, split across the two sites.

“We looked at doing this surveillance as part of our business continuity plan, but it has become the plan’s most important layer during COVID,” he says.

WPI has had a couple of non-negative results during its testing, which upon retesting have shown to be negative. Gutsell says if there is any doubt, the person is isolated and sent straight for a Ministry of Health test.

While there was a mixed reaction from our staff at the beginning, Gutsell says now there is strong compliance. Using saliva samples has been the key to that.

There is a growing number of companies acquiring their own Liberty16s and training.

Paul Pickering, CEO of Ubiquitome, says an iconic food manufacturer is among them. With Omicron indicated to spread rapidly and the Government’s acknowledgement that its testing regime will be for vulnerable people and essential workers under Phase Three, companies were developing their own testing as part of their business continuity plans.

Businesses have run into difficulty securing rapid antigen kits and there’s concern that they identify workers with COVID too late, after they had already been able to shed the virus infecting others for days.

“PCR testing remains the gold standard for identifying COVID early,” Pickering says.