IIT Delhi releases Covid 19 kit after getting ICMR approval

Covid testing, as you know, is very important for us to understand how many people have the virus, and which areas need to be 'contained' - i.e., kept controlled so that people cannot go in or out of them. (Question for you: Can you think of any other reason why testing is important? Do share with us).

The Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS) of IIT Delhi realised this as early as January 2020 and started working on a testing kit.  They wanted the testing kit to be accurate and cost-effective (something that doesn’t cost too much to make).

Today, after a long process, the testing kit got approval from ICMR, and is now ready for production. This makes IIT Delhi the first academic institution (school or college) to get ICMR approval for a test using this method. (It’s called RT-PCR. Read about it in our explanatory feature today). Research usually takes a long time, but the committed team came up with this kit in less than 3 months.

Note: Special thanks to Prof. V Perumal, IIT Delhi, for his valuable guidance in writing this story. He is also the team leader of this testing kit.