The Regional Medical Research Center of ICMR at Dibrugarh has designed an advanced testing kit that can detect the Omicron variant of COVID 19 within 2 hours. Before this, other technology available in the market usually took more than 3 days to detect this Omicron variant.
A team of scientists led by Dr. Biswajyoti Borkakoty put their effort to design a hydrolysis probe at Dibrugarh, the northeastern regional center of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). There are different sequencing to detect this Omicron variant. Till now, the first phase of sequencing generally took more than a day and around 3 days for the 2nd phase sequencing. Ultimately, more than 3 -4 days are required for the final result with whole-genome sequencing. But now scientists and the whole of India are very happy to see this advanced testing kit, which can detect the Covid variant with a few hours.
The team has not only developed the kit but also prepared a complete plan for commercial production in bulk quantities in a private-public partnership model. They have approached a Kolkata-based company, GCC biotech for commercial production of this testing kit.
