What happened
Shares of Co-Diagnostics (CODX) were running 4.6% higher Tuesday morning as of 10:30 a.m. ET on no company-specific news, though it may be getting a boost from an update from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down over 640 points, or 2%, from where it closed on Friday ahead of the holiday weekend, while the S&P 500 is down 112 points, or 1%.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
The World Health Organization reported this morning there are 5,322 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox. According to the WHO, 85% of the cases are in Europe.
That's of interest to Co-Diagnostics as it recently finished the principal design work on a PCR test for the monkeypox virus, which until recently was considered rare and sometimes deadly.
Although it was first detected in southern Africa, it is quickly spreading worldwide. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says there are 460 cases in the U.S., 40% of which are in California (95 cases) and New York (90 cases).
Now what
Co-Diagnostics CEO Dwight Egan has said the healthcare company was founded to make low-cost, high-quality tests available wherever they're needed, and it looks "forward to eventually making this test available in affected regions as needed to help slow the spread of the virus through early and accurate detection."
One of the criticisms of the early response to COVID-19 was a lack of availability of testing for the coronavirus.
