India has successfully developed the first indigenous Antibody Detection Kit for Covid-19, which will play a crucial role in surveillance for the viral infection.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that the National Institute of Virology in Pune developed the first indigenous kit that would help in better surveillance of the infection.
In a series of tweets, he said “#ELISA based testing is easily possible even at district level. The @icmr_niv technology has been transferred to #Zydus #Cadila for mass-scale production. The Drug Controller General has granted commercial production & marketing permission to Zydus.”
He said that the Antibody Detection Kit for Covid-19 has the advantage of testing 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours. This means that healthcare professionals can proceed quickly with necessary next steps, Vardhan said. This will play a crucial role in surveillance of proportion of population exposed to SARSCoV2 infection, he added.
The Minister also said the Kit has high sensitivity and accuracy. The Antibody Detection Kit for Covid-19 developed in a month’s time is cost effective. It can be used for testing at any level of clinical setting, including public health centers.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has recently cancelled orders for about half a million COVID-19 rapid antibody test kits from China after they failed in giving accurate results.
