FDA authorizes first at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test using saliva specimens

The Food and Drug Administration today issued an emergency use authorization to Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test with the option of using home-collected saliva samples. Once patients collect their saliva sample, they return it to RCGL in a sealed package for testing. "This provides an additional option for the easy, safe and convenient collection of samples required for testing without traveling to a doctor's office, hospital or testing site," said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D.