India on Wednesday approved the first home-based testing kit for coronavirus, reported the Hindustan Times . Residents can buy the kit at ...
India on Wednesday approved the first home-based testing kit for coronavirus, reported the Hindustan Times. Residents can buy the kit at Rs 250 and it will provide results within 15 minutes.
The Indian Council of Medical Research said it has approved a rapid antigen test kit manufactured by Pune-based Mylab Discovery Solutions. In a statement, the medical research body said that the testing is advised for use only on symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases.
“All symptomatic individuals who test negative by RAT should get themselves immediately tested by RT-PCR,” the statement said. “This is especially important as the RATs are likely to miss few positive cases presenting with a low viral load.”
Rapid antigen tests are considered less sensitive than lab-based RT-PCR tests. This means that some results from the RAT may show false negatives – wrongly indicating that the infection is absent. However, experts believe that their accuracy of the tests increase when the viral load is high.
The ICMR asked users to download the home testing mobile application available on Google Play Store and Apple store. “The mobile app is a comprehensive guide of the testing procedure and will provide a positive or negative test result to the patient,” it said. “All users are advised to click a...
