Made-in-India affordable COVID-19 test kit will show result in 1.5 hours

The test takes about one and half hours to confirm the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in patient samples, said Utpal Tatu, professor in the Department of Biochemistry, IISc, and founder of Equine Biotech. The kit is far more economical and reliable than the ones used currently, claimed the makers.

"Our startup has been working on testing for coronavirus infections for many years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic started. This experience has helped us engineer the kit for COVID-19," said Tatu.

This "sensitive, rapid, and affordable COVID-19 diagnostic kit" is easy to use with 100 per cent specificity, according to the start-up. The test kit shows results relatively faster than those available in the market, IISc said in a statement.

"Equine Biotech is looking to licence the above kit for large scale manufacturing and sale," the statement added. "The agreement would involve tech transfer and support in manufacturing of kits. We are looking at med-tech companies with experience in distribution and marketing of diagnostic kits," it further mentioned.

Earlier, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) gave approval for the commercial launch of India's first Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) coronavirus test 'Feluda'. The test kit was developed by the Tata Group and CSIR-IGIB (Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology).

"This test uses an indigenously developed, cutting-edge CRISPR technology for detection of the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 virus. CRISPR is a genome-editing technology to diagnosing diseases," ministry of science and technology said in a release.

"The Tata CRISPR test is the world's first diagnostic test to deploy a specially adapted Cas9 protein to successfully detect the virus causing COVID-19," it added.

"The Tata CRISPR test achieves accuracy levels of traditional RT-PCR tests, with quicker turnaround time, less expensive equipment, and better ease of use. Moreover, CRISPR is a futuristic technology that can also be configured for the detection of multiple other pathogens in the future,' it further said.

The total number of COVID-19 tests conducted in India crossed 7-crore mark on Saturday, the central government said. A total of 85,362 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the last 24 hours in the country. The total number of recoveries from COVID-19 surged to 48,49,584 on Saturday. At least 93,420 patients were cured from the disease in the last 24 hours.