IIT Kharagpur unveils its Covid-19 test COVIRAP: All you need to know

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur Wednesday announced that its Covid-19 test COVIRAP was ready for commercial use with the ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) validating the device.

It is a cuboid-shaped portable testing device that can deliver results in an hour, making it an effective tool to scale up Covid-19 screening in peripheral and rural areas.

It has an automated pre-programmable temperature control unit, a special detection unit on genomic analysis, and a customised smartphone app for results. Three master mixes work as markers of different genes to confirm the presence of SARS-CoV-2

Samples collected react with these mixes. When paper strips are dipped into these reaction products, coloured lines indicate the presence of the virus.

It is said that the team collected 200 positive and negative samples. After blind labelling, they were tested in a real time RT-PCR machine and COVIRAP. When they compared the test results, they found the machine to be very accurate. The temperature controlled COVIRAP showed 94 per cent sensitivity and 96 per cent specificity