India’s first COVID home test launched

India’s first COVID home test launched

LONAVLA, India: Indian start-up Mylab Discovery Solutions hopes that its inexpensive COVID-19 home test kit - the country's first - will help the massive South Asian nation better track the pandemic's spread among its 1.3-billion people. CoviSelf was launched earlier this month and is the first home testing kit to be approved in India, which is slowly emerging from a brutal second wave that overwhelmed its hospitals and crematoriums, with almost 30 million infected so far and over 350,000 dead.

But many experts suspect that the real numbers are much higher, blaming insufficient testing and inaccurate recording of the cause of patient deaths. The start-up, which also makes PCR tests to detect HIV infections, says that widespread access to CoviSelf - sold for 250 rupees ($3.40) - would reduce pressure on overburdened laboratories and improve infection tracking.

The kit uses a nasal swab and a QR code to connect to a mobile app which reveals results in 15 minutes, and sends the details to the Indian Council for Medical Research, the scientific agency leading the government's response. "It has been designed so people can do it at home. So the contents of the kit are simple, the way to dispose of it