MUMBAI: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) has developed a low-cost Covid-19 detection kit costing barely a few hundred rupees using indigenously developed technology. The kit was approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex bio-medical research body which is at the centre of the fight to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, on Thursday.
The institute is now in the process of identifying an industry partner and aims to get production rolling this week. The assay or procedure has been validated at ICMR with a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. This makes IIT-D the first academic institute to have obtained ICMR approval for a real-time PCR-based (Polymerase chain reaction) diagnostic assay.
IIT Delhi’s t