India's indegeneously manufactured Covid-19 test kits, Feluda, will be available in eight Apollo hospitals across eight cities, beginning with Delhi, Hindustan Times reported.
The testing kits, based on the gene-editing technology Crispr, will be accessible in Apollo labs in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad within the first week of December, sources told the publication.
The new technology will slowly be adopted by all of Apollo group’s 100 clinics and 75 labs.
The test, matching the accuracy level of the 'gold standard' RT-PCR test, will be done by collecting a swab sample from which RNA will be extracted and amplified. The sample will then be run under a paper strip barcode with Cas-9 protein of the Crispr system, which will recognise Covid-19’s genetic material. The entire process will take 45 minutes.
Dubbed TataMD Check, the test will use an AI-based application to take a picture of the test and give the result.
“RT-PCR tests have to be conducted in a batch and then every result has to be validated by a trained person, which takes time. In this, smaller number of samples can also be tested and the AI-based system means that the test can be quickly read and uploaded,” the CEO of Tata MD Girish told the publication.
While the company hasn’t named a price yet for the test, they said the price will be in compliance with “government capping” for other tests like RT-PCR, CBNAAT or TrueNat.
Published 20 November 2020, 07:57 IST