The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has developed a low-cost portable COVID-19 testing device that can deliver results in one hour and has also received certification from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
According to IIT-Kharagpur officials, ‘COVIRAP’ is a portable cuboid-shaped test device that can deliver results within an hour, making it an effective tool for scaling up coronavirus detection in peripheral and rural areas.
“This innovation has made high-quality and accurate COVID testing affordable for ordinary people with a testing cost of around Rs 500 which can be further reduced through government intervention. This machine can be developed at a cost of less than Rs 10,000 with a minimal infrastructure requirement that makes the technology affordable for ordinary people. The testing process on this new machine is completed in one hour, ”said Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.
He said the device would continue to affect the lives of many people in rural India as it is portable and can operate on a very low power supply. Minimally trained rural youth can operate this device.
According to VK Tewari, Director of IIT-Kharagpur, “The innovation is destined to largely replace PCR-based tests. While the Institute can produce the test kit up to a certain scale, the licensing of patents will facilitate commercialization opportunities for medical technology companies. Any company or start-up can approach the institute to obtain technology licenses and commercial scale of production ”.
In developing the ‘COVIRAP’ diagnostic test validation process, Mamta Chawla Sarkar, an internationally renowned virologist who oversaw patient trials on behalf of the ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), said that it has been performed a detailed scrutiny of the test results. clearly demonstrated that this assay has the ability to detect extremely low levels of viral loads that no other method based on similar test principles, even those of the most famous research groups around the world, could not reach so far.
“This means that very early stages of infection can be detected, thus isolating the patient and stopping the uncontrolled spread of infection in the community through asymptomatic patients,” he said.
According to the research team, the number of tests per hour-long batch on a single machine can be further increased to much higher limits, in order to perform large-scale tests.
“The patented machine unit has not only proven robust during patient sample testing, but also extremely flexible and generic. This means that, in addition to COVID-19 tests, many other tests, included in the category of nucleic acid-based isothermal tests (INAT), can be performed on the same machine ”, Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering , IIT -Kharagpur.
“This implies that influenza, malaria, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, tuberculosis and many other infectious diseases, as well as those transmitted by vectors, can be tested using the same machine. This will virtually minimize the need for thermal cyclers or real-time PCR machines, without sacrificing the high standards expected of a molecular diagnostic test, ”said Chakraborty.
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