Covid testing at Home: ICMR gives green signal to self-testing kit

Shimla: Indian Council for Medical Research (IGMR) today gave green signal for self-testing kit of Covid which would enable the people to conduct authentic testing at home

A spokesperson of the Health department said here today that ICMR has approved the said Kit manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions Limited which would be marketed by the name of Coviself (PathCatch) Covid-19 OTC Antigen LF Device.

This is a Covid-19 Over-The-Counter antigen testing kit. The test sample used for testing kit is the person's nasal swab.

The testing is recommended only in symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of laboratory confirmed Covid positive cases. The home testing should be conducted as per the procedures described by the manufacturer in the user manual kit.

The home testing mobile App should be downloaded from Google play store and Apple store by the user. The mobile app is a comprehensive guide for testing procedure that provides positive and negative results.

The users should click a picture of the test trip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone which was used for downloading the mobile app and user registration. The data in the App of the user would be centrally captured in a secure server which is connected with the ICMR Covid-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored.

All the results may be in order to be interpreted as per the protocol laid down by the manufacturer in the user manual. All individuals who test positive will be considered as true positives and no repeat testing would be done.

All the test positive individuals are advised to follow home isolation guidelines. He further said that it is essential for all the symptomatic individuals who test negative by this kit to get themselves tested by RTPCR in a laboratory.

This is important as RAT kits are likely to miss few positive cases which present with low viral load. He cautioned that the instruction on the kit must be strictly followed for disposal of test kits, swabs and other materials. He urged the public that the testing kit should not be indiscriminately used. (UNI)