Days after the COVID-19 testing through China-made antibody test kits was halted because of massive variation in test results compounding the challenge to contain the pandemic, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi has come up with a detect test for coronavirus which will make it affordable for a large population in the country.
The test has got the approval of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The IIT Delhi is the first academic institution to have obtained the ICMR approval for the test which is a real-time PCR-based diagnostic assay. It is similar to the currently available PCR test being used in India except that it eliminates the use of costly “probe” bringing down the cost.
“It is a very specific test which detects only novel coronavirus not the other viruses of corona family. We are set to finalise an industrial partner today. The company can start large scale production of the kits within 4-5 days,” Prof Biswajit Kundu, Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, IIT Delhi tells The Free Press Journal.
The IITD team has identified short stretches of RNA sequences in the novel coronavirus or SARS COV-2 genome which are not present in other human coronaviruses making it possible to detect only COVID-19 infection not the other corona infections.
Prof Kundu, who is the part of the 10-member team which has worked on the test for the past three months, says, “The current testing methods available use "fluorescent probe" while the one developed by us is a "probe-free" method and uses a much cheaper die. This brings down the cost per test around Rs300 to Rs400.”
The currently available tests cost up to Rs4,500 in private labs approved by the Union government.
“Up to 30 samples can be tested in one go and the results are available in four hours, like the currently available antigen-based PCR test. The assay has a sensitivity and specificity of 100 percent in the lab”, says Prof Kundu.
However, a 100 percent success rate is not easy to attain in the field. Even the currently available PCR test is about 65-70 percent sensitive, doctors say. For the same reason, countries like China are using a CT scan along with the PCR to detect more and more covid19 cases.
Dr Kundu admits that it can happen with the IITD test as well. Environmental factors and poor sample collection methods often give rise to false negative results.
However, the institute is working on a parallel test that can address this issue. “Both the tests together would give almost 100 percent confirmation whether the person is covid19 positive or not,” says Prof Kundu,
He refuses to share more details of this test citing confidentiality.
