GUWAHATI: Union home minister Amit Shah has today launched the first of a series of mobile labs at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) headquarters in New Delhi that will conduct cheapest real time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test in the country, to detect coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The RT-PCR test, which in some states costs as high as ₹2,400, will be done for ₹499, making this confirmatory Covid-19 test affordable for people at large. And the test report will also be generated in a record time of 6 hours after sample collection as compared to 24-48 hours that it takes at most places currently.
SpiceHealth, an initiative of the promoters of SpiceJet, and led by Avani Singh, CEO, SpiceHealth, will be setting up a number of portable testing facilities across the country to make the highly sensitive RT-PCR testing readily accessible.
In the first phase, 20 such labs are likely to be set up, and each lab is capable of processing 1,000 tests in a day.
