ICMR Approves Low-Cost Covid-19 Testing Kit Developed By IIT Delhi Researchers

In a major development, the researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi have successfully developed a COVID-19 test kit which has also received approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), reports Asian News International (ANI).

Speaking about the development, Professor (Prof) V Perumal shared that the kit developed at IIT Delhi is affordable for commercial production and that testing through it will be cheaper than all existing devices.

Prof Perumal also shared that the work on the development of the low-cost test kit had begun by the end of January, and has been completed in three months. And on Thursday (23 April), the ICMR approved the detection assay of the test kit which has been developed at IIT Delhi's Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS).

It should be noted that the assay of the low-cost test kit has been validated with a sensitivity and specificity of 100 per cent.

The team behind the development of the kit is now targeting a large-scale deployment at affordable prices with suitable industry partners.