A team led by Prof. Shiv Govind Singh of the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad has come out with a testing kit that uses Artificial Intelligence to determine COVID. The team comprising of Dr. Suryasnata Tripathy, a postdoctoral fellow, Patta Supraja, a fourth-year doctoral student and a few other students has come out with the kit that can provide result in around 20 minutes for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.
The kit has already been field-tested at the ESIC Medical College and Hospital to check its capability and efficiency to the fullest. Transportation of the kit is also easy allowing for point-of-care testing. The greatest benefit of this kit is said to be that it will not require the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR).
The current cost of each test through this kit is ₹600, but mass production can bring down the cost of testing to ₹350. Mr. Singh and team are currently getting the testing kit vetted by ICMR for mass production and will also be filing a patent soon.