India Fights COVID-19: Indigenous Tests Kits Will Be Ready By Mid-May, Says Minister

New Delhi: India will have indigenous test kits for Covid-19 ready by the middle of May, Union Health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has claimed.

“The next couple of weeks are going to be crucial as we will get to see results of some of our research and development work by scientists working under the ministry of science and technology. Around mid-May, we will have indigenous development of good quality antibody test kits, and also kits for detection of the virus (RT-PCR kits). All of this will come in May, thanks to our scientists,” Union health minister Harsh Vardhan was quoted as saying.

Dr Vardhan also heads the Science and Technology ministry, which is working on a number of other projects in the field of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccine to combat the deadly coronavirus pandemic which has killed over 2.3 million people across the world, including 1154 in India.

“There is a varied range of projects, be it discovery of the new drugs or repurposing of the old or existing drug molecules for finding out solutions to Covid-19, or even looking at vaccine development, which our scientists are working on. We already have half a dozen vaccine candidates, of which four candidates are in a significantly advanced stage,” said Harsh Vardhan.