IIT-Delhi researchers develop cost-effective test for COVID-19

The IIT Delhi researchers have come out with a cost-effective method to test COVID-19, which has claimed seven lives till now and has affected around 415 in the country.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi researchers have come up with a method to detect coronavirus, which is expected to reduce the test cost significantly making it affordable for large sections. The National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune is under process to validate the test on clinical samples.

The researchers have developed the probe-free detection assay at the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences which has been optimised and were tested for sensitivity at the research laboratories of the institute.

With the rising case of an ongoing pandemic, it is the need of the hour to develop indigenous kits, the team of researchers said in a statement.

Recently, the Centre had asked all the private laboratories to not exceed Rs 4,500 for the COVID-19 test.

As per the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), only those private laboratories will be allowed to do COVID-19 testing who have NABL accreditation for real-time PCR SA for an RNA virus.

However, the researchers from IIT Delhi have claimed that with their method of testing the coronavirus can be detected at a much cheaper price and hence, making it affordable for the general public. 

"We have identified unique regions in COVID-19, using comparative sequence analysis. These unique regions which are not present in other human coronaviruses make it possible to specifically detect COVID-19", Professor Vivekanandan Perumal, lead member of the team, said in a statement.

"Once the NIV validates the assay, it can be quickly scaled up to meet the increasing need in our country," he added.

As per the ICMR data, a total of 16,911 samples from 16,021 individuals have been tested for SARS-CoV2 as on March 21 and a total of 315 individuals have been confirmed positive among suspected cases and contacts of known positive cases.

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