TOKYO: Fujifilm Holdings Corp said it has developed a new test for the novel coronavirus that reduces the results time to about two hours.

The test was developed by subsidiary Fujifilm Wako Pure Chemical Corp and will be released on April 15, the company said in a release on Friday.

The SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR Detection kit will be able to deliver results for the virus that causes COVID-19 faster than existing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which presently take four to six hours, the company said.

Fujifilm's Avigan anti-flu drug is being tested as a treatment in China.