A US-based healthcare company Abbott launched a COVID-19 home test kit for the Indian market to meet the demand for testing. Priced at INR 325, the home test care kit is meant to detect the virus among children and adults affected or showing symptoms of COVID-19.
This is the second such test kit available in the country after Pune-based Mylab Discovery Solutions launched CoviSelf in May, which is priced at INR 250 per test.
With the coronavirus self-testing landscape maturing in India, a statement from Abbott said the company would provide billions of Panbio COVID-19 rapid antibiotic test kits available for personal use. This will help reduce the burden on the health system in urban and rural areas.
In alignment with the current ICMR advisory on self-use, these tests will be made available to ramp up testing of symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals and contacts of confirmed coronavirus cases.
Abbott India said that compared to an RT-PCR test, this is much more economical, and therefore, access to a self-test will be much higher.
Talking about the testing kit, Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, former Director-General, ICMR, said that it would speed up home isolation and stop the spread of the virus at the right time.
Sanjeev Johar, vice-president of the company’s Asia Pacific, said the rapid antigen test would help in the fight against coronavirus. The company has said that 7 million test kits will be distributed in the first phase by the end of July. As demand and demand increase, the company is able to produce millions of test kits.
This test kit is named as Abbott Panbio COVID-19 Antigen Testing Kit. A single kit costs INR 325, a 4-pack kit costs INR 1,250, a 10-pack kit costs INR 2,800 and a 20-pack kit costs INR 5,400.
PanBio Self-Tests will be available via retail pharmacies and through e-commerce platforms, as well as through organizations and institutions.
The PanBio professional test demonstrated 95.7 per cent sensitivity and 97.6 per cent specificity when benchmarked against RT-PCR tests.
Also Read: ICMR urges states to check portal, track those testing COVID-19 positive via home kits
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