'Coviself' Self Test Kit is All Set To Be Delivered At Your Doorstep

Newspapers and news channels were continuously showing how testing labs stressed during the second wave of COVID-19. On Wednesday, ICMR gave the nod to Mylab's 'Coviself.' Now anyone can be tested at their home without any hassle of being in a queue.

Usually, it takes a long time to be tested in the current scenario, and stepping out of symptomatic patients can cause transmission of this deadly virus. This kit uses a rapid antigen testing methodology. Taking this test will take only two minutes, and the result is delivered within fifteen minutes via their application. This application is available for android as well as ios platforms.

Developed by Mylab, a Pune-based company, it will produce ten million kits per week. It will be available on various platforms like Flipkart, pharmeasy, 1mg, and pharmacy shops.

This test kit will significantly help in pacing up testing speed in rural areas. The ICMR exclusively recommends this test for persons who have symptoms or are high-risk contacts of positive patients and require a home test. If the result is positive, the subject is Covid-19 positive, and RT-PCR is not required as a confirmatory test.

The price of this test is ₹250, and it will help provide an alternative to the current test method."Self-testing should slow down the spread of COVID-19 significantly. We aim to make CoviSelf available across the length and breadth of the country, especially for the people residing in rural areas who have limited options for testing.", the Managing Director of Mylab Discovery Solutions said.

Users are advised to download the manual from https://coviself.com/ before taking this test. The consistency of the outcomes is still a serious concern. It's very likely that the sample won't be gathered accurately or that the swab stick will become contaminated. Therefore, it should only be used as an alternative, not as a supplement to the current testing methodologies.

Last November, the FDA approved the first self-test kit in the United States. Lucira Health's rapid-result all-in-one test kit has been approved for emergency use. Kits of this type have also been certified in Europe and South Korea.

India reported the lowest one day spike in covid cases after 58 days, i.e. 1,20,332 with a total active caseload of 15,51,104