Made-in-Odisha rapid antigen testing kits will very soon hit the market for testing of SARS-CoV-2 infection in people.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has validated the first Covid-19 rapid antigen test kit, ImCOV-Ag, developed in Odisha.
The kit has been developed by the IMGENEX India Pvt Ltd, Bhubaneswar with intellectual input from the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC). The kit can detect various variants of Covid-19 by using nasopharyngeal swab samples.
IMGENEX CEO Dr Sujay Singh told reporters that his firm has started working on this project since June 2021 and the ICMR approved it on January 27 following certain procedures.
The kit was developed at a cost of Rs 1 crore and it is likely to be available in the market in two months. However, it is only for laboratory use, not for home tests, Singh said.
As per the ICMR, till date, as many as 150 antigen-based Rapid Test Kits have been validated (including 31 revalidations) and have been found to be satisfactory.
RMRC Bhubaneswar Director Dr Sanghamitra Pati said, “The IMGENEX India Pvt. Ltd, Bhubaneswar first started developing the kit and the RMRC provided intellectual support for in-house testing and validation. Subsequently, we submitted the proposal for approval.”
She added that the ICMR follows the criteria of sensitivity and specificity while approving any Covid test kit and this Odisha-made kit has passed on all