THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A new RT-PCR kit developed by the Sree Chitra Thirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) to accurately detect Covid infection, including those caused by delta and delta plus mutant viruses, was launched on Tuesday. Hyderabad-based Huwel Lifesciences is launching the product in the market. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has validated the kit at the National Institute of Virology in Pune.
The validation found the kit has 97.3% sensitivity and 100% specificity in Covid detection. It means that the kit can accurately test the true positive and true negative samples. More importantly, the kit can give results in two hours when compared to the four to six hours taken by various tests used in the market.
V K Saraswat, president of Sree Chitra Thirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology and member of NITI Aayog, the faster adoption of technology showcased the ability of Indian companies and startups to respond quickly to the need of the hour.
The product development was initiated by Dr Anoopkumar Thekkuveettil and his team. According to him, the kit uses two highly accurate confirmatory genes like RdRp and ORF-nsp14 to give precise results. Various studies have shown that RdRp and ORF1b-nsp14 genes are more sensitive in detecting Covid.
The ORF-nsp14 is one of the least mutated genes in Covid-19. This is one of the first kits in the market to have the ORF-nsp14 gene as the target in an RT-PCR kit, said a statement.
Besides the two target genes, the kit has human RNAse P gene as the internal control. The kit is based on multiplex Taqman chemistry, amplifying all three genes in a single reaction. The amplification time for the assay is 45 minutes, besides the time required for the RNA isolation from nasopharyngeal swab samples.
This is the second kit from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute to facilitate Covid detection. The first kit named Chitra Magna RNA isolation kit is already in the market. Ajitkumar V K, SCTIMST director and Rachana Tripathi, director of Huwel Lifesciences spoke at the function.