Indian researchers develop Omicron test kit resulting in 2 hours
The Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has developed an Omicron test kit that can detect the new Covid variant in two hours.
Assam's Dibrugarh team of ICMR, working since 24 November, has tested the kit on 1,000 Covid samples including samples of patients from states where Omicron has been detected, reports NDTV.
Currently, the licensing process of this test kit is underway, and is expected to be available for the lab from the next week.
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Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty, senior scientist of RMRC- ICMR, Dibrugarh, led the team.
"ICMR-RMRC Dibrugarh has designed and developed a hydrolysis probe-based real-time RT-PCR assay for detection of the new Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) that can detect the new variant within 2 hours." said, Dr Biswajit Borkakoty.
"The kit is tested against specific synthetic gene fragments of Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 within two different highly specific unique regions of the spike protein and also reference wild type control synthetic gene fragments," he added.
GCC biotech, a Kolkata-based company, will produce the test kit in a bulk basis under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
The test kit is intended for use in laboratories that have RT-PCR capabilities. India have reported 35 Omicron cases so far.
