London, May 21 (AP) British Health Secretary Matt Hancock says results of a government antibody surveillance study suggest that 17 per cent of people in London and around 5 per cent of the rest of the country have tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.

He said Thursday that the government has signed contracts to supply 10 million antibody tests from Roche and Abbott. The tests will start to be rolled out next week, starting with health care workers, patients and nursing home residents.

He also said that the government is trialing a new, faster swab test that would tell people if they currently have the coronavirus. The new test would return results in 20 minutes.

Official figures show that the death toll involving those tested positive for COVID-19 in Britain has reached 36,042, an increase of 338 from the previous day's figures. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)