NUST team develops testing kits for detecting Covid-19

[Devil Soul]

NUST team develops testing kits for detecting Covid-19
By APP
Published: March 15, 2020
TWEET EMAIL

PHOTO: AFP

ISLAMABAD: The scientists at National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Attaur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB) have successfully established Molecular Diagnostic Assays for the detection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology China, DZIF Germany, Columbia University USA and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) Rawalpindi.

These testing kits will cost one-fourth the current price for the kits used for detecting the COVID-19.

According to NUSTS, these assays have been developed at a time when the world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic novel coronavirus – and scientists and researchers are sparing no effort to ascertain remedies to this incurable disease.



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According to the NUST, the assays include both conventional and real time PCR-based methods of Sybr Green and Taqman.

The testing kits have been efficiently tested on laboratory controls and patient sample.

These indigenously established assays are robust, sensitive to the target, and would soon be available at one fourth the price of imported ones.

The team comprises Associate Professor Dr Aneela Javed and Assistant Professor Dr Ali Zohaib from NUST ASAB, who have been working on establishment of these assays for diagnosis of the pandemic the country is bracing itself for.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15th, 2020.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

We should be able to produce these kits or at least most components of them within Pakistan, so that we are never dependent on foreign assistance in times like these. The biotech industry has potential and we clearly have the expertise.

 

[V. Makarov]

Where in South Korea they are testing 20,000 people daily free of charge to analyze the spread of the virus, here in Pakistan it would still be a dream, even though a university has developed a testing kit.

Here in Pakistan, the bureaucratic red tape will not allow any local efforts towards containing the virus. The political elite will imports hundreds of millions of dollar's worth of medical equipment and testing kits from China because that would have more room for corruption.