IIT-Guwahati develops high quality, affordable Covid-19 kits

Guwahati, June 17

Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-G) on Wednesday announced that its researchers have created several affordable and high-quality Covid-19 kits during the crisis.

These affordable and sterile Viral Transport Media (VTM) kits, RT-PCR kits and RNA isolation kits have been developed at IIT-Guwahati jointly with RR Animal Healthcare Ltd with inputs from Gauhati medical college and hospital (GMCH), the institute said in a statement.

The VTM kits are the first stop source used to collect the nasal and oral swab specimens from the individual source to the laboratory safely for culture and testing. “We are happy with this product development and launch of the VTM and other COVID-19 related kits. I congratulate IIT-Guwahati Director and the faculty members for this development as well as acknowledge other help being provided to us,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam Health Minister.

According to the Institute, the “SPILD” VTM kits consists of a comprehensive solution specially formulated for the collection and transport of SARS-CoV-2. These kits comprise of a US CDC-recommended and validated transport medium and one each Nasopharyngeal and Oropharyngeal specimen collection swabs. The complete package is suitable for the collection, transport, maintenance, and long-term freezer storage of viral specimens.

The swabs have been designed ergonomically with a pre-moulded breakpoint on their shaft for enabling secure sampling. The large scale production of all these kits has commenced to meet the requirement of the Assam State as well as will be made available across the country.

“These high-quality sterile kits as requested by the state government will immensely help in conducting large scale testing and identification of Covid-19 cases and prevent the spread of this pandemic,” said Parameswar Krishnan Iyer, Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanotechnology, IIT-Guwahati. —IANS