One of Indiaâs biggest threats when it comes to fighting the Coronavirus pandemic in the subcontinent, is the countryâs low COVID-19 testing numbers. 

Even as the Director-General of the WHO advised all the affected countries to âtest, test, testâ on every other citizen, India has only been testing people with foreign travel history or those who have been exposed to confirmed Coronavirus patients.

The major reason why weâre facing this situation is that India has limited testing facilities. Or so was the case until very recently.

Because now, a Pune-based virologist named Minal Dakhave Bhosale has successfully developed Indiaâs first, low-cost COVID-19 testing kit which is being hailed as a game-changer for Indiaâs fight against Coronavirus.

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Minal is a virologist who works with a Pune-based molecular diagnostics company named Mylab Discovery Solutions as their Research and Development Chief. Reportedly, Minal was eight months pregnant and had just come home from a pregnancy-related complication when she took up the project to create the first âmade in Indiaâ coronavirus testing kit - âPatho Detectâ.

Minal was heading a 10-member team and handled major proceedings remotely from home since February this year. 

She, along with her dedicated team, worked non-stop to develop the testing kit in a record six weeksâ time, given the countryâs growing need to test more people for the Coronavirus infection.

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Minal submitted the fully-finished kit for evaluation at the National Institute of Virology in Pune on 18th March. And as fate would have it, the very next day she gave birth to her daughter through C-section. 

But even an hour before she was to leave for the hospital, Minal submitted her proposal to the Indian FDA and CDSCO seeking commercial approval. She got it all right in the first go, got the necessary clearances and gave India a much-needed weapon to fight Coronavirus.

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Not only has this development come as a ray of hope for Indians, the kit developed by Minal and her team also comes with its own salient features that make it invaluable. This COVID-19 testing kit can reportedly test 100 samples per kit and would cost one-fourth the price at Rs 1,200 as opposed to Rs 4,500 imported testing kits cost.

Thatâs not all. Indiaâs COVID-19 testing kit is capable of giving correct diagnostic results in just two and a half hours as opposed to the six or seven hours imported test kits take. Whatâs more, the kit can also indicate potentially positive cases among asymptomatic patients

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The first few batches of kits developed by Minal and her team have already been sent out to diagnostic laboratories in major Indian cities. The director of the manufacturing company of the COVID-19 kits, Mylab Discovery, told BBC that the company can supply up to 100,000 kits in a week and push it up to 200,000 if needed.

This week will see more kits reaching many other labs and take-up Indiaâs much-needed testing numbers higher. Talking about the feat, Minal told BBC, "It was an emergency, so I took this on as a challenge. I have to serve my nation."

Given the dire need to scale up the number of random testing of Coronavirus in India, 'Mylab PathoDetect COVID-19 Qualitative PCR kit' can not only help with early diagnosis but also help bring down the number of fatalities in the process.

Kudos to Minal Bhosale and her team for their terrific work!

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