India News | SpiceHealth Inks Pact with CCBM for Dry Swab COVID-19 Test
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Health-care company SpiceHealth has signed an MoU with the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here for using the latter's COVID-19 dry swab direct RT-PCR test technology, billed as a "game changer" that would cut down the time and cost in diagnosing the infection, officials said on Monday.
Hyderabad, Dec 14 (PTI) Health-care company SpiceHealth has signed an MoU with the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here for using the latter's COVID-19 dry swab direct RT-PCR test technology, billed as a "game changer" that would cut down the time and cost in diagnosing the infection, officials said on Monday.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently granted approval to the CCMB, a premier research institute, to commercially use the technology of dry swab RNA extraction- free Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) testing method for detecting coronavirus.
SpiceHealth, founded by the promoters of SpiceJet, currently has five functioning labs at government requested locations around Delhi NCR, conducting 10,000-15,000 tests per day, the company said.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the CSIR-CCMB was for conducting tests using the technology in Spice Healths mobile testing laboratories.
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"The dry swab method, developed by CSIR-CCMB, will reduce testing time by 1.5 hours, significantly reduce cost and further revolutionise RT-PCR testing," SpiceHealthChief Executive Officer Avani Singh said.
SpiceHealth was proud to be the first Indian laboratory to incorporate this method, he said.
CSIR-CCMB Director Rakesh Mishra said the dry swab testing method will be a game-changer in testing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The method is safer, faster and cheaper than the current testing method without compromising the quality of test results. We are very happy that SpiceHealth will use this technology in their mobile testing labs, and benefit a large number of people," he said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)