FDA Approves Quick Blood Test for Anthrax

More than two years after anthrax killed five people in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first commercially available test to help diagnose an anthrax infection in less than an hour.

Unlike other anthrax tests that can take up to four hours, the new process can quickly detect antibodies produced by the body to fight the infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The new test helps confirm a diagnosis of anthrax because it demonstrates that a person’s immune system has responded to a protein produced by the infecting bacteria,” CDC officials said in a statement.