The Covihome test kit is reported to produce test results within 30 minutes for symptomatic as well as asymptomatic patients of COVID-19. Moreover, the home test kit will be available at a convenient price.
An official press release stated that the kit has the potential to work at home without expert supervision as it does not require Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR), an expert human resource, and a BSL-2 lab facility for the extraction of RNA.
The test kit will be powered by Artificial Intelligence and the procedure can be performed at an affordable cost. It is developed by the researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IITH).
CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) performed the validation of this test. It wanted to check the detection of SARS-Cov-2 virus in the swab samples independently with the in-house samples and hospital samples. It was performed on advise by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The results were confirmed by re-testing the swabs by the traditional RT-PCR method. The validation report confirmed the device's efficiency to be 94.2%, sensitivity to be 91.3%, and specificity to be 98.2%.
What Is The Cost of Covihome?
Currently, each test kit costs Rs 400, however, after mass production of the kits, the cost will reduce to around Rs 300, following the approval by ICMR.
Professor Shiv Govind Singh of the department of electrical engineering who led the research team said, "A major objective of the research team for the development of the ‘COVIHOME’ test kit was to break the transmission chain through affordable testing."
According to a report by The Hindu, the research team consisted of Swati Mohanty, Supraja Patta, Suryasnata Tripathy as well as other students led by Singh.
The initial clinical trial and testing were performed at ESIC Medical College and Hospital in Hyderabad, it added.
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