Some simple test kits at home to detect coronavirus infection
Posted on: 29/Jun/2020 4:17:50 PM
IIT Delhi, jointly with the National Chemistry Research Center at Pune, has undertaken the efforts to produce some simple test kits which detect the infection of the coronavirus.
Getting financial assistance for this effort from the NCL Microsoft which functions under the Council of Indian Science and Industrial Research, IIT Delhi has jointly started earnest research work on the production of simple test kits to identify coronavirus infection.
It is expected that these test kits will be ready in a month and that it would be possible to confirm the infection quickly with these kits.
This plan has the objective of getting the serological estimate based on the ‘Eliza’ disease detection.
If the production of the kit is successful, it will become a far cheaper avenue to detect the coronavirus infection. Further, it will be beneficial on the commercial and economic fronts as well!
In this regard of the research work on the detection kit, Anuraag S, Rathod, Professor, Chemical Engineering, IIT Delhi had a session with the PTI (Press Trust of India) reporter and shared:
“It has been a challenged n the medical field to find the working kit/equipment/procedure for detecting the coronavirus pandemic. With the present systems, the test laboratories have to work on a detection process based on genetics. In this method, one has to wait for several hours to know the test results.
This kind of test CANNOT BE PERFORMED IN RESIDENCES by individuals.
Presently, with the experiment IIT Delhi has undertaken, if results are successful, the test kits would be far cheaper. They may be ready in a month and would help in successful detection.
IIT Delhi is the 1st institution to obtain permission to produce coronavirus detection test kits from IMCR (Indian Medical Council for Research). The rights for the testing and the patent for the commercial production of the test kit have been given to the Bengaluru biotechnology company, Genie Laboratories. It is expected that the price of this test kit will be around Rs. 500.
