India’s drug authority has approved a paper-strip test for Covid-19 that shows results in less than an hour, the head of the government institute that invented the test told CNN.
The test, called FELUDA—an acronym for FNCAS9 Editor-Limited Uniform Detection Assay—was named after a popular Indian fictional detective. It intends to “address the urgent need for accurate mass testing,” according to a statement from TATA Sons, which manufactures the test.
The kit could be manufactured for self-testing in the future, according to Agarwal, but the prototype being developed currently is only intended for testing in labs.
The FELUDA test follows a similar rapid test kit developed in the US this spring. Both tests CRISPR to detect the virus in a patient’s RNA. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the emergency use of the SHERLOCK test kit in May, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
FELUDA has a 96% sensitivity and 98% specificity for detecting the novel coronavirus. A test’s sensitivity indicates the likelihood of false-negative results; its specificity indicates the likelihood of false-positive results.
“This marks a significant achievement for the Indian scientific community, moving from R&D to a high-accuracy, scalable and reliable test in less than 100 days,” the Ministry of Science and Technology statement said.
The test “is simple to administer and easy to interpret, enabling results to be made available to the medical fraternity in relatively lesser time as compared to other test protocols,” Banmali Agrawala, president of Infrastructure and Defense and Aerospace for Tata Sons, said in a statement.
Beyond administering the test, the result takes another 15 minutes. This means the entire test can be completed in roughly less than an hour, according to Agrawal.
