The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved what could be a major development in the fight against the coronavirus. 

Missouri Governor Mike Parson made the announcement during a live briefing Wednesday afternoon. He said it was just approved for use by the FDA. It was developed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis.

“This new saliva-based COVID-19 test… is a major development in testing technology and will help us continue to increase testing volumes and improve turnaround time for test results,” Gov. Parson said.

According to a release from Washington University, the saliva test was developed by a team from the Department of Genetics and the McDonnell Genome Institute, both at Washington University School of Medicine.

According to a release from the university, the ability to scale up the number of tests that can be conducted also has the potential to help St. Louis city and county, as well as the state of Missouri and regional businesses, reopen safely.

It also said the saliva tests could be given periodically to residents of nursing home and retirement communities, who are more vulnerable to infection because of age. Those who test positive could be quickly identified and quarantined.

The new test allows individuals to provide a saliva sample instead of the long nasal swabs that everyone hates.