- Jamia’s 3 assistant professors develop the testing kit at Jamia’s Multidisciplinary Centre for Advanced Research and Studies.
- The test can be taken at home conveniently and gives results in less than an hour.
- Experts say this kit can increase testing in Delhi because of its easy-to-use nature.
THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: Amidst a surging number of Covid cases that are at its peak in Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia researchers have come up with an innovative solution to facilitate boosted Covid testing.
The minds behind this ingenious Covid testing kit are a team of researchers from Jamia Milia Islamia – Tanveer Ahmad, Mohan Joshi and Jawed Iqbal. All of them are assistant professors at Jamia’s Multidisciplinary Centre for Advanced Research and Studies (MCARS).
Their unique testing kit is much more convenient because now the users can get themselves tested at home. The users have to add a chemical to their saliva collected in a tube and heat it. After heating the components, the users can then dip a paper strip that comes with the kit to check if they are Covid-positive.
Tanveer Ahmed, one of the researchers who formulated the kit said,
“This kit is a non-invasive method of testing where one has to collect their saliva, and it does not require any expertise. While RT-PCR is considered the gold standard of testing for Covid-19, even that gives incorrect results sometimes as it involves swabbing the nostrils. MCARS researchers have been working on saliva-based testing for a few years. This method allows users to conduct tests on their own.”
India’s first RNA extraction-free testing kit is named Cas13 Associated Saliva-based & Smartphone Integrated Testing (Casspit). Researchers believe this can increase testing in Delhi as it is a much more simple test to take and can provide the results within an hour.
Source: ET Healthworld
