MyLab Says Its '2-Minute' Covid Self-Testing Kit Will Be Available in 7 Lakh Pharmacies Next Week

A day after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) approved its at-home Covid-19 test kit ‘CoviSelf’, officials of Pune’s Mylab have said that the test takes two minutes and the result appears in 15 mins. They said that any adult can easily use this kit to test themselves.

ANI quoted the director of Mylab Discovery Solutions Sujeet Jain as saying, “It takes 2 minutes to conduct test & 15 minutes to get a result. It will be available by end of next week in more than seven lakh pharmacies and our online pharmacy partners across India. Our target is to reach 90% pin code in India.”

Jain also said, “This test is for self-use. If you test positive via this there’s no need for RT-PCR test as per ICMR. Any adult can use this kit by reading our manual.”

Jain’s remarks come a day after the ICMR announced that it had validated and approved the test kit by the Pune lab.

In an advisory on the kit, the ICMR warned against indiscriminate home testing using Rapid Antigen Tests, and said that only individuals showing symptoms and immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive Covid-19 cases should use this test.

The ICMR said, “All symptomatic individuals who test negative by RAT should get themselves immediately tested by RT-PCR. This is especially important as the RATs are likely to miss few positive cases presenting with a low viral load.”

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The advisory also said that symptomatic individuals who test negative on this home test may be treated as suspect Covid-19 cases.

The advisory said that home testing should be conducted as per the procedure described by the manufacturer in the user manual.

The ICMR said the home testing mobile app is available in Google play store and Apple store and must be downloaded by all users. The mobile app is a comprehensive guide of the testing procedure and will provide a positive or negative test result to the patient. All users are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone which has been used for downloading the mobile app and user registration.

“Data in the app of your mobile phone will be centrally captured in a secure server which is connected with the ICMR COVID-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored. Patient confidentiality will be fully maintained,” the advisory said.

(With PTI inputs)

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