Swine flu in India: First Indian-made diagnostic kit for swine flu costs only Rs. 850

With the rising number of swine flu cases across the country, a fast and effective diagnostic kit was the need of the hour. The government, in February, approved the first Indian-made swine flu diagnostic kit, developed by Bengaluru-based Molbio Diagnostics. This kit can take the load off of people as it is portable, cheaper and delivers results faster than ever, reported the Economic Times. (Read: Prevent swine flu with these 10 dos and don ts)

Sumit Mitra, marketing manager, global business at Molbio Diagnostics claims that the kit costs around Rs. 850 which is almost half the price of imported kits which sell for about 2000-2800 Rs and at one time hardware cost of Rs. 5 lakh which is about one-fourth of other imported platforms. This test delivers results in an hour as compared to other tests that present results in 6 hours. (Read: IMA guidelines to tackle swine flu (H1N1 influenza) in India)

According to the report by Economic Times, Mitra said that the turnaround time for tests on other platforms is longer primarily because it is very expensive to carry out a single sample test on their platforms. Usually, the labs wait to collect a minimum number of samples before they run such tests. He further informed that their kit makes it economical to run test on each sample separately, one reason why we can promise faster results in case of many infections. One of the main reasons that traditional tests take a long time is because the samples have to transferred to a central lab which houses the bulky hardware. (Read: Swine flu treatment and medicines -- Tamiflu, Relenza and more )

He also explained that since their hardware is light,portable and easy to operate it is far more convenient as the samples can be withdrawn from patient's bedside and he/she need not travel to the lab where the equipment are located. (Read: 15 precautions every Indian should take to prevent swine flu)

Molbio's platform has been installed in 40 labs across the country and they have approached the centre to get clearances from Indian Council of Medical Research and Drug Controller General of India and they got the nod in a few days.

Photo source: Getty images

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