The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has estimated that India may require around 1 million Coronavirus test kits and has put a bid for the same. Recently, a Pune-based company Mylabs got approval for testing kits and is likely to bid for manufacturing testing kits at nearly one-fourth the rate. Complete Coverage: Coronavirus
Crux of the Matter
Coronavirus Update In India, Coronavirus cases have crossed the 700-mark and the death toll is nearing 20 as on 27 March. The government has declared a shutdown to stem the spread of virus. But that may not be enough if proper Coronavirus testing is not carried out. It is evident from USA’s current predicament, what harm lack of proper testing can do. It has more than 85,000 COVID-19 patients, surpassing the number of Coronavirus cases in China. The global count of Coronavirus cases is now more than half a million.
India Looks Inward for Solutions To meet the demand of 1 million Coronavirus testing kits, Ahmedabad-based CoSara Diagnostics has become the only Indian company so far to receive the consent to manufacture test kits. Following suit, Pune-based microbiology lab Mylab got approval from Indian FDA-CDSCO for its indigenous COVID-19 testing kits that reduces testing time from 6 hours to 2.5hours. It has assured the government that it can produce 1 lakh testing kits per week and even increase production if needed. ICMR has also said that it will begin conducting tests for antibodies. This is called Serological test. It looks for antibodies in a person’s blood. It tells the doctors if the patient had developed antibodies to Coronavirus.
Chinese Kits – A Noose for Countries Till date, countries like Spain and the Czech Republic were using a faulty testing kit produced by China. Spain said that the test kits could only detect 30% of the cases correctly. Spain currently has more than 4,000 deaths, world’s second-highest. Thus Indian authorities have decided the standards of the test kits to be equivalent to the criteria set by US Food and Drug Administration or the European regulator’s CE in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) certification. It can also be validated through a validation certificate issued by the National Institute of Virology in Pune.
Spain sends back China's coronavirus testing kits after they fail to work Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/xmU0O3BNBc pic.twitter.com/IbeP3jvfqj — ANI Digital (@ani_digital) March 27, 2020
Curiopedia
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world. The ICMR is funded by the Government of India through the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. ICMR’s 26 national institutes address themselves to research on specific health topics like tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera and diarrhoeal diseases, viral diseases including AIDS, malaria, kala-azar, vector control, nutrition, food & drug toxicology, reproduction, immuno-haematology, oncology, medical statistics, etc. The Indian Journal of Medical Research is published under the auspices of the council. More Info
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