There is now a test kit that is able to diagnose Covid-19 patients within 15 minutes!
According to Straits Times, Nankai University in China successfully developed a coronavirus rapid test kit that is able to identify if a suspected patient is infected with the virus in much lesser time compared to previous tests.
The Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) IgM/IgG antibody detection kit was developed by the university, which is based in northern China’s Tianjin, with the help of experts from other Chinese universities and biopharmaceutical companies.
This kit is able to detect the virus in just 15 minutes, which makes it a whole lot faster and easier to diagnosing suspected patients and conduct on-site screening of people in close contact.
This comes after China’s Ministry of Science and Technology carried out research projects on rapid test kits for the coronavirus. They said that the current nucleic acid detection reagants used to diagnose patients take a long time and have very complex operations.
With the virus spreading rapidly all around the world, a faster test is needed to meet the demands of the ever-growing number of patients.
A number of research teams across China are developing or have developed rapid testing products for the coronavirus, but the Nankai test kit is expected to be used in epidemic prevention and control soon.
Hopefully this rapid test kit is able to help out this pandemic in one way or another.
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