Claimed to be the world’s most affordable diagnostic kit for coronavirus, a low-cost test kit developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi was launched on Wednesday.
According to IIT officials, the base price of the the RT-PCR assay developed by IIT Delhi is Rs 399. Even after adding the RNA isolation and laboratory charges, the cost per test will go upto Rs 650 and will be considerably cheaper compared to currently available kits in the market. It can deliver results within three hours. The kit Corosure has been commercialised by Newtech Medical Devices.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” launched the test kit named “Corosure” which will now be available for use at authorised testing labs. The kit has received ICMR approval with the highest score and DCGI approved with a very high sensitivity and specificity,” he said at the launch.
India saw a record single-day jump of 29,429 COVID-19 cases pushing its tally to 9,36,181 on Wednesday, while the death count climbed to 24,309 with 582 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
