LONDON (Reuters) – A British company behind a 10-minute coronavirus antibody test, which will cost about a $1, has begun sending prototypes to laboratories for validation, which could be a game-changer in the fight against the pandemic.

Health technology firm Mologic, which created one of the first at-home pregnancy tests, is aiming for the test to be rolled out by as early as June if the trials are successful.

Antibody tests are designed to establish whether people have previously been infected, as oppose[/b]d to antigen tests which show if someone actually has the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus.

Mologic said assessment and validation of its COVID-19 diagnostic test had begun this week at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and St Georges hospital, and that global partners would also examine the prototypes.

Joe Fitchett, Mologic medical director, said that while many companies were working on virus diagnostics, [b]the aim was to create cheap, widely available tests.

“They must be made available to the vulnerable and most precious in society, in the UK or elsewhere,” he told Reuters.

“I would be really disappointed to see a good test that is shown to work to be sold on Amazon only be used by a tiny proportion of the population.”