Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister :

• National Institute of Virology, Pune has successfully developed the 1st indigenous anti-SARS-CoV-2 human IgG ELISA test kit for antibody detection of COVID19 .
• This robust test will play a critical role in surveillance of proportion of population exposed to SARSCoV2 infection.
• This kit was validated at 2 sites in Mumbai & has high sensitivity & accuracy.
• Besides, it has the advantage of testing 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours, so that healthcare professionals can proceed quickly with necessary next steps on their patients’ triage paths.
• ELISA based testing is easily possible even at district level.
• The @icmr_niv technology has been transferred to Zydus Cadila for mass-scale production.
• The Drug Controller General has granted commercial production & marketing permission to Zydus