IIT Hyderabad researchers develop coronavirus testing kit that claims to deliver results in 20 minutes

IIT Hyderabad researchers have developed a low-cost test kit that can deliver the results in 20 minutes. The testing method used is an alternative to the currently used method. 

A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad has announced that it has developed a coronavirus testing kit that can deliver results in 20 minutes.

The IIT Hyderabad researchers have claimed that they have developed a method to do coronavirus testing which can give the results in 20 minutes. The institute has said that the method developed by them is not based on the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) — the method currently being used for COVID-19 testing.

The test kit has been developed at a cost of Rs 550 and it can be reduced to up to Rs 350 when taken to mass production, they said.

While a patent has been filed for the test kit, the team has conducted clinical trials at ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Hyderabad and sought approval from the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).

“A testing kit has the ability to deliver the results in 20 minutes for symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. The uniqueness of this test kit is that it functions sans the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR),” Shiv Govind Singh, the professor at IIT-Hyderabad’s Electrical Engineering department, said.

This portable low-cost test kit can be easily carried around and the test can be done at any point of care. A unique sequence of conserved regions of COVID-19 genome has been identified by the team, Singh said.

IIT-Hyderabad is the second academic institution in the country to come up with a testing kit for novel coronavirus. Earlier, IIT Delhi had got the nod from ICRMR to develop a real-time PCR-based diagnostic assay.

Also Read: IIT Delhi coronavirus testing kit gets nod from ICMR

It had claimed that the current testing methods available were “probe-based” while the one developed by its students was a “probe-free” method, which reduces the testing cost without compromising accuracy.

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