At a time when more and more testings are being done to trace, treat Covid cases in the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday approved a home-based rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit — CoviSelf, for Covid-19. The council said that the kit should be used only on symptomatic individuals and on immediate contacts of laboratory confirmed positive cases. It will provide results in 15 minutes.
Speaking on home testing kit, ICMR DG Dr Balram Bhargava said, "for home testing for COVID-19, one company has already made the application, and 3 are in the pipeline. Within a next week, we should have another 3 companies."
Elaborating further on how to use the test kit, ICMR said, "Step 1 is that you buy the test kit from a chemist; Step 2- download mobile app; Step 3- conduct the test at home; step 4- click mobile image and upload, test result will be given. Within 3-4 days this should be available in the market."
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ICMR said, "Our target is to do 25 lakh tests by the end of this month and 45 lakh tests by the end of June."
"More of Rapid Antigen Tests should be done because you can get results rapidly and then isolate the patient quickly," ICMR added.
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