Days after the launch of its 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) drug for adjunct therapy for Covid-19, the Defence Research and Development Organisation has developed a new antibody detection-based kit, that can give the result in 75 minutes and will cost Rs 75, according to a statement issued Friday.
The DRDO’s Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) laboratory has developed the DIPCOVAN kit, which can “detect spike as well as nucleocapsid (S&N) proteins of SARS-CoV-2 virus with a high sensitivity of 97 per cent and specificity of 99 per cent”, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
It is “intended for qualitative detection of IgG antibodies in human serum or plasma, targeting SARS-CoV-2 related antigens” and offers a “significantly faster turn-around time, as it requires just 75 minutes to conduct the test without any cross reactivity with other diseases,” the ministry stated.
The DIPCOVAN kit has an 18-month shelf life, it added.