Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister of India, on the 15th of July, launched an affordable test kit for the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 infection.
Mr. Ramesh Pokhriya was accompanied by Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for the HRD during the launch event.
The most affordable and said to be accurate Coronavirus test kit has been made by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT,) Delhi.
The new COVID-19 test kits were produced by the IIT Delhi and manufactured by New Tech Medical Devices pharma company.
The kit was launched after being approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR.)
The new kits would be available for hospitals and diagnostic centres across India.
Ramesh Pokhriyal took to Twitter and said, “Launching the world’s most affordable probe free RT-PCR based #COVID19 diagnostic kit, along with MoS for HRD Shri @SanjayDhotreMP ji. #AatmaNirbharBharat.”
With this, IIT Delhi has become the first Indian institute to develop a COVID-19 testing method.
V. Ramgopal Rao, the Director of IIT Delhi said, “This should change the paradigm of COVID-19 testing in the country, both in terms of scale and cost.” He further said, “The company Newtech Medical Devices, using IIT Delhi technology, can do two million tests per month at an extremely affordable cost. This is a true example of (the) lab to market.”
The institute gave a non exclusive open license to companies for commercialising the test kit with a price rider.
While the price rider of the COVID-19 kit is Rs. 500, market price is yet to be announced.
The affordable COVID-19 testing kit has been named as COROSURE.
More details including price and availability of the COROSURE is awaited.
Stay tuned for further updates.
