India’s First Official COVID-19 Testing Kit Gives Result in 20 Minutes
Shikha Chaurasia
New Delhi, August 27, 2020: India’s first official rapid COVID-19 antibody testing kit developed by a Delhi-based firm Oscar Medicare got its approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The point-of-care (POC) rapid testing kit can be considered as India’s first COVID-19 antibody testing kit. Oscar Medicare, which has developed the kit also makes diagnostic kits for HIV, dengue and malaria at its three plants.
According to a report by Times of India, Anand Sekhri, CEO of Oscar Medicare claimed that the POC rapid testing kit developed by their firm can generate results in 20 minutes. He also said the kit will be priced around Rs 200. India is currently using a different model for detecting COVID-19 positive patients. We are using the Standard Q COVID-19 rapid antigen detection test POC diagnostic assay in combination with RT-PCR test.
The Standard Q COVID-19 rapid antigen test uses nasopharyngeal swabs to test for the SARS-CoV-2 in the nasopharynx. This test generates results within 30 minutes while the RT-PCR test results take a lot of time. It can take hours or even days for generating results because it uses a lab technique called polymerase chain reaction for detecting the genetic material of the virus.
Oscar Medicare testing kit will be effective in generating quick results which will help in treating the patients at the right time. Oscar Medicare has also told the TOI newspaper that they plan to manufacture two lakh testing kits in September. Sekhri has also said the firm’s capacity is five lakh testing kits per day.
The firm has already got distributors across the country. The raw materials and the Corona fusion antigen has been manufactured by a group company known as Dhiti Life Sciences.
