India’s health research agency on Wednesday approved the country’s first fully-at-home, over-the-counter Covid-19 diagnostic test that detects protein fragments of the coronavirus in nasal swabs, five months after US regulators approved a similar test.
The Indian Council of Medical Research said it has approved a rapid antigen test (RAT) diagnostic kit from the Pune-based Mylab Discovery Solutions for use only in people with symptoms and immediate contacts of lab-confirmed cases.
The agency said home testing should be conducted under procedures described by the manufacturer in the kit’s user manual and all users must download the home testing mobile app available on Google playstore and Apple store.
A home-based test would provide a rapid do-it-yourself diagnosis for patients and help ease the pressure on diagnostic labs across India which conducted over two million tests on Tuesday.
The ICMR said all individuals who test positive should consider themselves as true positives and need not seek a repeat test but isolate themselves under standard home-isolation guidelines.
All patients with symptoms who test negative through the RAT should get themselves tested immediately with RT-PCR. All RAT negative but symptomatic persons should be treated as suspect Covid-19 positive cases and advised to isolate themselves until their RTPCR results arrive.