Earlier this month one of Indias leading conglomerates announced the launch of world first paper based Covid 19 test kit Feluda.To be available in the market soon the strip test promises to provide 96 percent sensitivity and 98 percent specificity and likely to work as good as the currently reliable RT-PCR and in less than 45 minutes.
Dr Debjyoti Charkraborty and his team in the RNA biology lab at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's Institute of Genomic and integrative Biology developed the kit very earlier in the pandemic. "For past some years we were working on a quick diagnostic kit for
Sickle cell anemia, when Covid 19 started becoming deadly, we decided to a our knowledge to developing a quick kit for Corona virus," Dr Debjyoti said.
The team included another senior scientist Soubik Maitra and some postdoctoral students, PhD scholars and research fellows who were equally passionate about
finding suitable healthcare solutions .
The kit works on the same principle as PCR and detects virus genes, while the rapid antigen test detects viral protein..
"The RT in Feluda means reverse time where gene editing Is done. The RNa virus genome is converted to DNA and the visualisation is captured on a paper strip giving a colour band similar to the
Pregnancy test.

Feluda reduces the need for technical expertise and expensive machines and might just be a do it your self test soon.