‘2 minutes for test, 15 for result’

New Delhi, May 20: CoviSelf – India’s first self-use Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kit – will take two minutes to carry out the test and results will be available in 15 minutes, the Pune-based firm that produced the kit said.
The test kit was approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – the nodal body in the fight against the virus – on Wednesday.
“It takes two minutes to conduct test and 15 minutes to get result. It will be available by end of next week in more than seven lakh pharmacies and our online pharmacy partners across India. Our target is to reach 90 per cent pin code in India,” Sujeet Jain, Director of Mylab Discovery Solutions – the firm that produced the kit – was quoted by news agency ANI.
“This test is for self-use. If you test positive via this there is no need for RT-PCR test, as per ICMR. Any adult can use this kit by reading our manual,” he added.
Only symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of people who have tested positive in laboratory-conducted tests should use this kit, the ICMR has said. “Indiscriminate testing is not advised,” the top medical body said while issuing detailed guidelines on the kit’s use.
“All symptomatic individuals who test negative by RAT should get themselves immediately tested by RT-PCR,” the ICMR added.
CoviSelf test results will have to be uploaded to a mobile app that can be downloaded from Google’s Play Store or the Apple Store, the ICMR said.
“All users are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone,” the nodal body said.
Data transmitted by the phone will be centrally captured in a secure server that is connected to the ICMR’s COVID-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored.