ICMR approves Covid-19 home testing kits under this condition
New Delhi : The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday approved a home-based rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit for COVID-19. It has asked people to use on the ones who have symptoms or are the immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases.
According to the ICMR, the home-based rapid antigen testing kit manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions Ltd, Pune, has been validated and approved. Only nasal swabs will be required to test coronavirus via this kit, adding the process should be conducted as per the procedure described by the manufacturer in the user manual, said a PTI report.
The ICMR advisory reportedly asked people to use it only on symptomatic individuals and on the immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases.
The advisory also mentioned that those who test positive in RAT should consider themselves as positive and no repeat testing is needed. "Home testing by RAT is advised only in symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases. Indiscriminate testing is not advised," the ICMR was quoted by PTI as saying.
"All symptomatic individuals who test negative by RAT should get themselves immediately tested by RT-PCR. This is especially important as the RATs are likely to miss few positive cases presenting with a low viral load," it added.
"All RAT negative symptomatic individuals may be treated as suspect COVID-19 cases and are advised to follow the ICMR/Ministry of Health home isolation protocol while awaiting the RT-PCR test result," the advisory further stated.
The ICMR also informed about their application which is available on both Google play store and Apple store. It said that the users must download it as it gives a complete guide to use the kit at home.
All users are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone which has been used for downloading the mobile app and user registration.
"Data in the app of your mobile phone will be centrally captured in a secure server which is connected with the ICMR COVID-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored. Patient confidentiality will be fully maintained," the advisory underlined.
