NUST researchers develop testing kits to detect coronavirus

• The testing kit will cost less than the current price for the kits used for detecting the COVID-19.
• The testing kits have been efficiently tested on laboratory controls and patient sample.

(Karachi) In a recent development, researchers at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Attaur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB) successfully established Molecular Diagnostic Assays for the detection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

The kits have been developed in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology China, DZIF Germany, Columbia University USA and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) Rawalpindi, media reported on Sunday.

The testing kits will cost less than the current price for the kits used for detecting the COVID-19.

NUST officials said the assays have been developed at a time when the world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic virus outbreak and scientists and researchers are striving to ascertain remedies to this incurable disease.

The assays include both conventional and real time PCR-based methods of Sybr Green and Taqman.

The testing kits have been efficiently tested on laboratory controls and patient sample. These assays are robust, sensitive to the target, and would soon be available at one fourth the price of imported ones.

On Saturday, Pakistan reported two more coronavirus cases taking the toll to 30 in the country.

One case was confirmed in Sindh, while the other in Islamabad. The Sindh health department confirmed that a 38-year-old man who travelled from Saudi Arabia was tested positive.

The second patient, a 30-year-old woman, had traveled from the United States to Pakistan a few days ago. Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) officials said the patient has been put on the ventilator after her condition worsened.

She was brought to PIMS from a private hospital after her test came out positive, local media reported.