Dielectica traverses through the literature on this novel piece of protein coated RNA – and summarizes as they appear.
Correspondence prepared by: Sayan Dey (21st July, 2020 08:30 IST)
KOLKATA: When the whole world is fighting a novel virus with debatable origin called COVID 19, India is climbing the league table steadily in terms of affected population and deaths. As of 8th August, 2020, India bagged the highest spot with over 65,000 new cases of infection. These are tough days when we are losing over hundreds of our fellow countrymen every day; the count has crossed the thousand mark on the ninth day of this month. It seems as if death is taking its turn in the most drastic way. Complete lockdowns, community spreading, quarantines have become very common for us nowadays. Sometimes by July 2021, we would be well accustomed to these occasional lockdowns and lose even more touch with one another in terms of social distancing. Half of us would lose our jobs and who can say, we may have some new business giants rising out of the pharmaceuticals. Wearing masks would be a fashion by then and traditional Dusserra, Diwali and Lori would completely lose their importance. According to a prediction by two professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hazhir Rahmandad and John Sterman and their group, India may pose the worst possible scenario by winter 2021, if proper vaccination is not available as the daily case counts may reach upto 2.87 lakhs. Under this dark circumstance, research Technology Kharagpur developed a new technology for low cost and portable COVID test kits. “This first-of-its-kind device will bring the testing for COVID-19 out from the walls of expensive laboratories and RT-PCR machines and enable testing at affordable costs for the under-served community across the world,” a press statement from IIT- KGP said.Prof. Suman Chakraborty said, “The technology developed is very much different from traditional detection systems used across the world. This method has eliminated the need for a PCR machine. It includes a portable, automated
organisations throughout the country have developed several rapid diagnostic kits.
On 10th May, National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune successfully developed India’s first indigenous ELISA (Enzyme linked Immunosorbent Assay)based test kit for SARS – CoV-2 antibody detection. The union health minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “The robust indigenous IgG ELISA test for antibody detection developed by ICMR-NIV, Pune will play a critical role in surveillance of proportion of the population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus Infection.” The ICMR partnered with Zydus Cadila to market the kit in the early stages of the pandemic. With time and increasing severity, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi came up with the cheapest rapid detection kit named “Corosure”. The kit was approved by the ICMR and Drug Control General of India and was produced in large scale by NewTech medical devices could be made available at an alarmingly low price of Rs. 399 (i.e. $5.32 per kit). This Real Time – PCR unit facilitated a pre-programmable temperature control unit, a special detection unit on genomic analysis and customised smartphone application for test results without any manual interaction”. He also added that RT-PCR based tests suffer from a compelling constraint of requiring an elaborate laboratory-infrastructure and support system including the operational and maintenance cost, to perform the test. The equipment will cost approximately Rs. 2000 (i.e. $26.66) and will revolutionize the diagnosis science throughout the world. The director of IIT Kharagpur Prof. V.K. Tewari expressed
probe free, high accuracy diagnosis with minimum false positives. Mr. Jatin Goyal, founder of NewTech medical devices in a press meet on 15th July said, “unique technology developed by IIT Delhi and our expertise in reagent and kit-making, we have ensured an accurate, affordable, Make-in-India kit for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV2, which is a ‘probe-free’ method, and reduces the testing cost without compromising on accuracy. We are anticipating two million kits by next month”.The HRD minister Mr. Ramesh Pokhriyal while launching the affordable kit commented, “The country requires affordable and reliable testing which can help to control the pandemic. The Corosure has been developed indigenously and is much cheaper than other kits. The kit has received ICMR approval with the highest score and DCGI approval with a very high sensitivity and specificity”.According to the Director of IIT Delhi, Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, the institute and its researchers would be dedicatedly involved in the COVID-19 research until the country along with the rest of the world frees itself from its clutches completely. Developments by the Indian scientists are progressing fast. With a far sighted vision of beyond 2020, when a kit will be indispensable in practically every house, the scientists from the Indian Institute of
the hope that the innovation “can make significant breakthrough in global viral pandemic management” and added that the unique innovation is aligned with the institution’s vision to “develop high-end healthcare technologies that can be afforded by the common people”. So, it seems that India has prepared herself well to go beyond the darkness of 2020 hoping to strive in light with expectation of the clouds of corona getting wiped out of the face of the earth by 2021 end.