Corona self testing kit to be available in market from next week
Now you will not need to go to the health centers for random examination of corona nor need to call anyone home for sample collection. You will be able to examine positivity for corona easily. The first testing kit for in-house Covid testing will be available in the market by the end of next week. Sujit Jain, director of Mylab Discovery Solutions, Pune, has given this information to news agency ANI.
This is the first home testing kit approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research for use in the country. Producers have targeted to reach 90 percent of the PIN codes in India, while also being purchased online. Jain said, “By the end of next week it will be available with 7 lakh chemist shops and our online pharmacy partners.”
ICMR DG Dr Balaram Bhargava has said that 1 company has already applied for home testing, while 3 other companies are in the pipeline. Within a week there will be 3 more companies, which will provide home testing kits.
The cost of the CoviSelf kit will be Rs 250, which includes tax. There will be a manual with the kit that will tell how you can check the corona yourself without the help of any health worker. Since this is a rapid antigen test, only the nasal swab will be required. The test will take only 2 minutes and within 15 minutes you will know the result. If the report comes after 20 minutes it will be considered invalid.
The self-testing kit for Corona is new to India, but many other countries have already started using home testing kits. In the second wave of Corona, a record number of cases were reported in India in March-April, there is also a lot of pressure on testing facilities and people have to wait a long time for the results.
The ICMR has already said that people with corona-like symptoms should be treated as covid potential and start treatment before the testing results are released. The ICMR has also said about home testing that not everyone is required to do this test. Only home people who have symptoms or have come in contact with an infected person.
Mylab currently has a production capacity of 7 million test kits per week. The company wants to increase the capacity to 1 crore within 14 days. Rapid test costs an average of 400 rupees, while for RT-PCR test, you have to spend around 800 rupees.
