HYDERABAD: In what could be the gold standard for Covid-19 detection and make RT-PCR tests more affordable, the CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd. announced a collaboration for joint manufacturing and commercialisation of an innovative dry swab test. Called the Direct Amplification rapid RT-PCR (DArRT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 detection, the test doesn’t require the viral transport medium, which is often more expensive and requires special handling.
The test has been developed by CSIR-CCMB and their collaboration with Apollo Hospitals will focus on scaling up manufacturing and commercialisation of the tests. According to Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, CSIRCCMB, whose organisation came up with the test kits, said this will be helpful in conducting frequent tests that will be cheaper, rapid and easy to use.
“As people are getting back to their normal lives and businesses, it is important for us to ramp up our testing for the coronavirus. The virus will be here for some time, it seems, and those who test more frequently will be able to contain the impact of Covid-19 better,” he said. With the new dry test, swabs can be collected from nasal or oropharyngeal placed in dry containers.
DArRT-PCR test reduces the time and human effort by 40- 50% as the collected sample can be directly isolated from the patient, using a one-step protocol, said officials. The current gold-standard method, on the contrary, requires many expensive reagents and steps that add to the expertise, money and time required.