Testing Kit To Detect Omicron In Two Hours? Read Details Here

Dibrugarh: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Dibrugarh, Assam has designed a testing kit that will be able to detect Omicron in two hours, news agency ANI reported.

At least 33 cases have been detected in the country so far.

Till now, it used to take three to four days time to detect the Omicron variant with the help of the kits currently available in the market.

A team of scientists of Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) for the Northeast region, ICMR has developed a testing kit that enables to detection of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in real-time. The team led by scientist Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty has prepared a kit that has the ability to detect the Omicron variant in 2 hours time from a given sample.

“ICMR-RMRC, Dibrugarh, has designed and developed a hydrolysis probe-based real-time RT-PCR assay for detection of the new Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) that can detect the new variant within 2 hours. This is important because as of now a minimum of 36 hours is required for targeted sequencing and 4 to 5 days for whole-genome sequencing to detect the variant,” Dr. Borkakoty was quoted as saying by ANI on Saturday.

The kit developed by ICMR-RMRC Dibrugarh is now being produced on a bulk basis by a 100 per cent made in India, a Kolkata-based company, GCC biotech on a public-private partnership (PPP) model.