Abbott Laboratories said on Friday it won U.S. marketing approval for a diagnostic test for the coronavirus that can deliver results to patients within minutes and be used in physicians offices and urgent care clinics, as well as hospitals.
The United States now has more cases of the coronavirus than any other country, and hospitals have struggled to meet the demand to test thousands of people for the often-deadly virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the approval under its Emergency Use Authorization. Abbott said in a statement that it plans to begin distributing the test next week and will ramp up manufacturing to 50,000 tests per day. [ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ] “This is a