"Corosure" claimed to be the world's most affordable diagnostic kit for corona launched
New Delhi: Claimed to be the world's most affordable diagnostic kit for coronavirus, a low-cost test kit developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here was launched on Wednesday.
According to IIT officials, the base price of the RT-PCR assay developed by IIT Delhi is Rs 399. Even after adding the RNA isolation and laboratory charges, the cost per test will go upto Rs 650 and will be considerably cheaper compared to currently available kits in the market. It can deliver results within three hours.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' launched the test kit named "Corosure" which will now be available for use at authorised testing labs.
"The Corosure Kit has been developed indigenously and is much cheaper than other kits. The country requires cheap and reliable testing for the country which can help control the pandemic. The kit has received ICMR approval with the highest score and DCGI approved with very high sensitivity and specificity," he said at the launch.
Referring it to as world's most affordable COVID-19 diagnostic kit, the HRD Minister said the innovation is a step towards "Make in India".
IIT Delhi, which became the first academic institute to get ICMR nod for a COVID-19 testing method, gave non-exclusive open licence to 10 companies for commercialising the test, but with a price rider of R 500 for the assay needed for testing.
The kit Corosure has been commercialised by Newtech Medical Devices.
According to the team at IIT Delhi, the current testing methods available are "probe-based", while the one developed by them is a "probe-free" method, which reduces the testing cost without compromising on accuracy.
Using comparative sequence analyses, the IIT Delhi team identified unique regions (short stretches of RNA sequences) in the COVID-19 and SARS COV-2 genome.
"These unique regions are not present in other human coronaviruses providing an opportunity to specifically detect COVID-19," Professor Vivekanandan Perumal, lead member of the team, had said.
"Primer sets, targeting unique regions in the spike protein of COVID-19, were designed and tested using real-time polymerase chain reaction. The primers designed by the group specifically bind to regions conserved in over 200 fully sequenced COVID-19 genomes. The sensitivity of this in-house assay is comparable to that of commercially available kits," Perumal added.
India saw a record single-day jump of 29,429 COVID-19 cases pushing its tally to 9,36,181 on Wednesday, while the death toll climbed to 24,309 with 582 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
This is the fourth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 28,000.
The number of recoveries stands at 5,92,031, while there are 3,19,840 active cases of coronavirus infection presently in the country, the updated data at 8 am showed.
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Real Madrid fines Valverde and Tchouaméni half a million euros each for altercation
Barcelona (AP): Real Madrid slapped players Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni with half-a-million-euro ($588,000) fines on Friday for their altercation during practice.
The massive fines came a day after the midfielders tussled when the team trained. Valverde said in a post on social media on Thursday that no punches were thrown. But Valverde knocked his head on a table and he suffered a small cut that required a brief hospital visit.
On social media, Valverde initially called it a “meaningless fight” with a teammate and said “everything has been blown out of proportion."
His employers, however, considered it a significant enough breach of team discipline to nail both Valverde and Tchouaméni with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player. The half-a-million euro penalties reflect the reputational damage the club was enduring in a chaotic end to a disappointing season.
In a statement, the 15-time European champion said its disciplinary action was concluded after both players expressed to the club “their complete remorse for what happened and apologized to one another.”
Madrid added they also apologized to their teammates, the coaching staff and club supporters, as well as showing their willingness to accept whatever disciplinary action the club deemed “opportune.”
Tchouaméni was back training with Madrid on Friday, two days before they play at Barcelona in a clasico. Madrid has to win otherwise Barcelona will be crowned La Liga champion.
After being notified of the fine, he posted a public apology to the club and its fans on social media.
“What happened this week in training is unacceptable,” Tchouaméni wrote. "I say this while thinking about the example we are expected to set for young people, whether in football or at school.
“Above all, I am sorry for the image we projected of the club.”
Valverde was not at practice due to the head knock.
Both players are set to play in the World Cup next month, with Tchouaméni playing for France and Valverde for Uruguay.
Chaotic end to a poor season
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The run-in between the players, who for seasons have played side by side in Madrid's midfield, came after they argued this week in previous training sessions. But tempers boiled over on Thursday. Spanish media was rife with reports that the players previously disagreed over the club's decision to let coach Xabi Alonso go after just months on the job.
It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training this week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.
Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid's reserve team when Alonso was fired in January, will face tough questions on what went wrong inside the changing room when he gives a press conference on Saturday ahead of the clasico at Camp Nou.
Madrid is facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in the Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back Jose Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.
